The Constitution provides for freedom of the press and mass information and the “right of each person to seek, pass on, produce, and disseminate information freely by any legal method.” The Government generally respects these provisions; however, the law contains provisions regarding secrecy of information that federal, regional, and local authorities have on occasion chosen to interpret broadly in order to limit access to information and to prosecute journalists and media organizations that publish critical information.
Because Russian media generally are not financially self-sufficient, they are subject to manipulation by the Government and by companies that are their majority shareholders. These financial entities manipulate the media at times to further their own political and financial goals. Journalists and editors admit that the political and business interests of major shareholders are paramount, causing journalists to practice self-censorship. Prominent Russian human rights activist Sergey Kovelov has stated that, in these circumstances, “The Russian media are free but not independent.”
Despite this, the major print media organizations represent Russia’s broad political spectrum and provide readers with a variety of information. Independent and semi-independent television stations continue to develop, and the number of small private radio stations, mostly in the big cities, continues to increase. Nevertheless, reports of government pressure on the media continue, particularly when coverage deals with corruption or criticism of the authorities.
Private companies began investing heavily in the media market in 1997, even though the media generally are not yet profitable. The most powerful companies, such as Lukoil, Gazprom, and a number of banks, fought for influence on the Moscow media market and began to invest in media in the provinces.
Federal, regional, and local governments continued to exert pressure on journalists by depriving them of access to information, using accreditation procedures to limit access, removing them from their jobs, and bringing libel suits against them. The Glasnost Defense Fund’s (GDF) mid-year report noted that such actions against journalists increased from 126 cases in the first half of 1996 to 202 in the first half of 1997. By year’s end the GDF’s updated figures for 1997 included 420 cases in which the rights of journalists and press freedom were violated. Further, the GDF reported that there were 353 incidents in which journalists and media sources were accused by the authorities of abuse of their journalistic privileges (defined as “incitement to societal animosity,” violations related to advertising activity, campaign activities, publication of state secrets, and libel).
Accreditation rules often violate the constitutional right of journalists to access to information. For example, at the beginning of the year, the public relations department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs revised its accreditation procedure and required journalists to submit their articles for the previous 6 months in order to be considered for accreditation. The Internal Affairs Ministry withdrew this policy only after the GDF insisted that such a requirement violated federal law.
In March the State duma withdrew accreditation from ORT (Russian public television) journalists on the grounds that their coverage of a duma debate was not objective. For 3 weeks these journalists were refused access to duma proceedings; the Supreme Court ruled the duma’s action illegal.
In the provinces, the use of accreditation to limit journalists’ access was even more common because every regional duma, court, or city administration devises its own accreditation procedures. In July the Bryansk duma refused to renew the accreditation of Yevgeniy Yegorov, a journalist from the local daily Dobriy Den, because he wrote an article criticizing the deputies’ excessive expenditures on business trips and gifts. In May the Novosibirsk mayor denied accreditation to journalists from Komok newspaper on the grounds that he needed “to see how they do for a month or two” and that he had a feeling that the newspaper might be “shut down.”
The number of court cases against journalists increased 2.5 times over 1996. In the majority of these cases, a government body or individual official accused journalists and their newspapers of “causing damage to reputation.” According to the GDF’s mid-year report, libel and criminal proceedings against journalists often do not have a sound legal foundation. Nonetheless, judges rule against the media in the majority of these cases because the law is vague and judges are reluctant to challenge powerful local officials. Such rulings reinforce the tendency towards self-censorship.
Journalists publishing critical information about local governments and influential businesses, as well as investigative journalists writing about crime and other sensitive issues, were subjected to threats, beatings, and even murder. In a 1997 report on violations of the rights of journalists, the GDF found numerous instances of harassment, including financial pressure, physical assaults, and threats against journalists’ families.
In a widely publicized incident, Duma member and leader of the Liberal Democratic Party Vladimir Zhirinovskiy physically attacked Moscow Television Channel (MTK) journalist Yulia Olshanskaya and a cameraman from the 2x2 television channel, Valeriy Ivanov. Zhirinovskiy attacked the journalists because they tried to film him as he attempted to cross the militia cordon at the annual May 9 World War II victory celebration. Zhirinovskiy dragged Olshanskaya to a nearby car, forced her in, and locked her inside. Then he and his bodyguards proceeded to beat up Ivanov, repeatedly slamming a car door on his head. The Committee to Protect Journalists sent a letter to President Boris Yeltsin expressing concern over the indifference of law-enforcement officers towards these attacks on journalists. Olshanskaya filed criminal charges against her attacker. Zhirinovskiy was not detained (Duma members enjoy immunity from criminal prosecution), and the case against the bodyguards is still pending.
In the regions outside the major media markets of Moscow and St. Petersburg, the pressure against the media is even more pronounced. Local authorities and criminal groups often feel that they have absolute power in “their” regions. Many authorities continued to use their ownership of media premises, printing facilities, government subsidies, and charges of libel to pressure the media. In May two men severely beat “Komsomolskaya Pravda” correspondent Irina Chernova in the center of Volgograd. Chernova alleged that the attack was connected to one of the two investigations that she was working on at the time. One involved suspicious dealings between the local Hermes-Povolzhye Bank and a local drilling technology factory. The other involved the Volgograd Region police, against which she brought harassment charges shortly before the incident.
In February two journalists of Irkutsk’s Zemlya newspaper, Robert Sheptalin and Aleksandr Shakhmatov, were arrested and imprisoned on bribery charges. Their colleagues alleged that the two men were imprisoned as a result of their unfavorable reporting on prominent city officials. They were still in prison months after their arrest, and the investigation was not proceeding.
Several journalists were killed throughout the country. However, at year’s end, it was not yet known whether they were killed in circumstances connected to their work. For example, on March 20, a radio correspondent of Kabardino-Balkariya radio, Vladimir Aliyev, was found with a cracked skull 60 kilometers from the region’s capital, Nalchik, and died from the injury a few days later. Even though the attack was classified as a theft because his documents and money were missing, the journalist’s colleagues are convinced it was murder. They claim Aliyev received numerous death threats before the attack. The local procuracy, which seems to be treating it as a routine homicide, states that the case has been closed because the alleged perpetrator has since died.
Komsomolskaya Pravda special correspondent Valeriy Krivosheyev was killed in Lipetsk on September 6. According to a report from the Committee to Protect Journalists, Krivosheyev had told colleagues the day before that he was pursuing a story that he termed “a bombshell of national proportions.” Krivosheyev had previously pursued controversial stories as an investigative journalist for the Lipetsk daily De Fakto.
The Government’s information policy remained restrictive. Facts, documents, and statistical data are still frequently kept from the press. The secrecy of information, and the resistance of senior officials to its release, were typically cited as pretexts for refusing to provide information to journalists.
In response to the kidnapings of journalists in Chechnya
in March, the Chechen Internal Affairs Ministry announced that all journalists
wishing to visit Chechnya must register with the Ministry, travel to the
Republic only by air, stay in the government compound at the airport, and
hire armed government bodyguards. Russian and foreign correspondents
generally refused to comply.
Internews Russia primarily serves the community of private regional television broadcasters. The comments here are based on our impressions received through numerous contacts with those broadcasters and extensive knowledge of the industry. However, since Internews does not currently have the resources to do in-depth statistical research, these comments should be taken for what they are, which is strictly anecdotal.
Generally, we found the report on Russia to be in line with our understanding of the situation as it affects TV stations. However, the following points deserve attention:
The report states: “Because Russian media generally are not financially self-sufficient, they are subject to manipulation by the Government and by companies that are their majority shareholders.” Although this is often the case, it is probably far less true of regional television stations than of newspapers. Many TV stations now support themselves primarily on advertising, and the leverage of their shareholders is not significant or is based on factors that are not financial (political or personal relationships, etc). A far lower percentage of television stations than newspapers rely on local government financing or subsidies to survive, and, although the majority do rely on government transmission facilities in one way or another, those facilities, which have been semi-privatized, are more interested in the fees they collect from private stations, and have repeatedly taken the side of independent television against the authorities.
Similarly, the statement, “[p]rivate companies began investing heavily in the media market in 1997, even though the media generally are not yet profitable. The most powerful companies, such as Lukoil, Gazprom, and a number of banks, fought for influence on the Moscow media market and began to invest in media in the provinces,” is somewhat misleading with regards to television. While no one will argue that the powerful companies’ interest in local TV stations is politically motivated, it is not solely political. In many cases Moscow media giants have clearly identified stations that were well-managed and profitable as targets even when other stations in the same city might have been easier and less expensive to acquire. The best-run TV stations in the larger Russian regions are definitely profitable, and the companies investing in them are more than likely to see a financial benefit. It should also be noted that the real ownership of regional television by Moscow groups is still quite small, and is spread among several groups. We have yet to hear reports of significant meddling in editorial policy at stations that have chosen to sell interest in their stations.
Certainly attempts to influence news coverage by local authorities and businesses continues. However in more than one situation we have heard of an effect absolutely contradicting the idea of Moscow owners trying to use regional TV for their own agenda. After local station sold shares to a major Moscow media group, the Moscow company used its enormous political influence to force the local governor and other authorities to stop harassing the stations.
Meanwhile, a TV station in Petrozavodsk reports that in the run-up to a major election the current administration head had actively pressured radio stations and newspapers to run extremely unfavorable, unproven, and almost certainly false reports about his opponent. He also attempted to convince the TV station to run this material, threatening to cause problems for the director via the FSTR (the agency that issues broadcast licenses) in Moscow. The station director refused, feeling that his position was not vulnerable. He did not say whether that was because he believed the FSTR would not react to such tactics, or whether he felt that he simply had as much pull there as the politician.
Persephone Miel
Internews Russia
I contend with the statement that Russian mass media are not generally self-sufficient. Like any business, there are financial interests backing media, but they seldom receive government subsidies. Just like in any country, the controlling interests, of course, are going to want their views promoted, but, as it is written in the report, it sounds like some kind of unnatural manipulation. Perhaps this objection of mine is more on moral, than on purely factual, grounds.
I do agree that there is a good amount of self censorship. The secrecy issue also remains very relevant in Russia, perhaps most of all in the provinces where I used to live and watch.
Elizabeth Schuster
Counterpart Consortium
Most alarmingly, the section on Russia failed to
mention the twenty-one journalists kidnapped last year in Chechnya—in fact,
it ignored the place altogether. Chechnya is the most dangerous place
for journalists in the region, and, as a result, very few Russian and foreign
journalists venture there anymore. There’s a virtual news blackout.
Local journalists work for Russian and Western media, but they have had
problems leaving Chechnya—for example, several Chechen journalists working
for various agencies, including Reuters and the Chechen government agency,
were kidnapped in Daghestan.
While such a report attempts to give a balanced view on the media climates in the countries it covers, it tends to overlook the real working conditions for journalists there—which have a real impact on coverage and ultimately, on democratic development. The summary on Belarus failed to mention the very restrictive amendments to the press law, adopted by the rubber stamp parliament in December, which effectively give the so-called State Press Committee (an executive branch body) unilateral judicial powers to control the media. This was a significant development for the beleaguered mass media, as well as the courts/judicial branch.
Chrystyna Lapychak
Committee to Protect Journalists