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Free Press: Romantic Dream? On November 10, First Deputy Press and Information Minister, Dmitri Tsabria spoke at a meeting organized at the Russian-American Press and Information Center in Moscow as part of its extensive pre-election activities. His remarks are excerpted below from a translation prepared by the Federal Information Service. [The FNS translates many programs at the Center, which are available on Lexis/Nexis. We are living through hard times for the Russian mass media. I have already used this expression and I will use it once again. Maybe this expression sounds a bit romantic and so on, but I would say that today Russia’s mass media have been inflicted a wound, and rather a serious wound. Probably, it’s not the right time and the right place to say why, who inflicted it and so on and so forth. History will pass its judgment. A few years ago, more exactly three years ago when the Union press law was in the making, we had a romantic dream that within two or three years we would be able to help the free press to stand on its feet, will help a constructive opposition press to emerge and then the ministry will be disbanded because it has fulfilled its function. But it was a romantic dream because life is deeper and more complex. It turned out that the transition from a censored press in a totalitarian state to a free press in a democratic state is along and arduous path. It is impossible to make a leap from one state to another within two or three years. So, we have a certain imbalance. On the one hand, we are doing everything on the political front in order to form an independent press, but on the other hand, the state has to render direct financial support to the mass media. Whether you like it or not the state wields the instrument of subsidies and this provides a means of pressure on the mass media. As long as the state will allocate direct subsidies to the media it will for ever compromise the idea of a free press. On the other hand, if you abolish subsidies that would mean that the national papers will stop coming out within two days. We have run ahead or times. Take, for instance, the way we manage law-breaking in the mass media. The procedure for implementing the law has turned out to be cumbersome and in practice it cannot provide effective protection of mass media. One can cite the example of our long struggle against the newspaper Den. It is untrue that we didn’t have the competence and that we had amateurish judges. We had professionals and we had the clout. The trouble was that the civil proceedings coupled with a lack of judiciary practice and tradition involving such disputes and a lack of knowledge plus the actual state of our law courts all produced the result which you know. What do you expect if the people’s judge when confronted with the plaintiff’s statement to the effect that the newspaper writes that the present regime is an “occupation regime” replies, and this is documented in the minutes, “but isn’t it an occupation regime?” What can you expect from such a court? We intend to make major changes in the law on the mass media. But in doing so we are not going to touch—and indeed neither the president nor the Federal Assembly, nor the government will allow us to—the basic principles built in this law, i.e., the principles of independent mass media, their professional independence, a ban on censorship, etc. I would describe another problem as protecting society against unlawful actions on the part of the Russian mass media on the one hand, and protection of the media and journalists against unlawful actions on the part of society. It would be wrong to say that we only protect journalists. The written and spoken word is a double-edged weapon. It can be used to protect, to wound and to kill. Both the task of protecting the media and protecting the society against the media are equally important as was highlighted by the recent events. You can defend somebody with the words and you can wound somebody with the word. Or even kill somebody, etc. So, the tasks of protecting the mass media and protecting society from the mass media are equally important. The latest developments have brilliantly demonstrated that. The weapon in the hands of the mass media is too sharp and too effective. It is too sharp and too effective in the hands of journalists in order to handle it freely. Too many people suffer and too much depends on that word. We are speaking about the fourth estate. I would like to reflect a little bit on this subject because I am a lawyer by education. I see how freely they treat the notion of the fourth estate here. But may be, I will do it a little later. The law on the mass media contains a certain mechanism of protection of both society and mass media. There are organizational structures related to this function. I mean first of all the state inspectorate for the protection of the press and the mass media, but life goes on and what seemed to be new and interesting and quite sufficient and fulfilling this function yesterday, today shows its impotence. We need new protection mechanisms for the mass media and the new mechanisms to protect society from the mass media. This is a comprehensive task, related to legislative initiative, that is the necessary of making amendments to both the law on the mass media and other legislative acts—I mean the criminal code, the civil code and the code about administrative misdeeds, etc. In other words, we need a more efficient, a more rapid mechanism of protection on both sides. It is impossible to spend six months in a law court trying to protect one’s dignity and honor. It is impossible to spend six months in a law court trying to protect one’s dignity and honor. It is impossible for the journalist to spend the year in a law court fighting this or that official—a cad, who has kicked him out from the territory of a factory or an enterprise, thus violating the provisions of Article 140-1 of the Criminal Code “Interference with Legitimate Journalistic Activities.” The October developments have demonstrated on the one hand that the journalists are unprotected from abusive actions of state structures. Many of our colleagues have been beaten up, many of our colleagues have been molested and we were just biting our fingers in impotent fury. On the other hand, we see how many journalists . . . . I don’t know what to call them in order to avoid hurting anybody’s feelings . . . what contribution was made by certain mass media, hence, their staff to the coverage of the developments that took place by the White House. To a great extent the blood spilt there is on the passions of masses people by feeding them the thought that violence was in order, that blood was in order. |
Last Updated: 11/20/99 |
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© 1999 Post-Soviet Media Law &
Policy Newsletter |
