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Yeltsin as Press Critic President Yeltsin took the opportunity of a pre-election meeting with mass media leaders to express, rather candidly, his views about current press ethics. He condemned, according to a November 6 ITAR-TASS report, what he saw as the shift from “enlightened” to “low-standard” television programs. “The corruption of individual journalists and whole programs is no longer concealed. Covert commercials appear almost openly. They either openly hush up the activity of some political or commercial groups or present it in a favorable light for them.” He was not much kinder about the printed press: “The corruption of journalists and editors can be explained by their miserable salaries. But still I cannot consider the press ‘free’ if journalists receive money—sometimes exceeding their annual pay—for covert advertising, favorable presentation of a party line or the hushing up of criticism.” Here is what he said about pluralism and ideology: “We have lived with ideology for long enough to see and understand through our own experience what it is like. We should not go back to a press informed by a state ideology again. On the other hand, if to speak about ideology, in a broader sense as moral norms and cultural values accumulated by human experience, even Christian commandments, I am convinced that we should not reject them.” |
Last Updated: 11/20/99 |
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© 1999 Post-Soviet Media Law &
Policy Newsletter |
