|
Russia The Media
For most of the Soviet era, the news media were under full state control. The major newspapers, such as Pravda
, Izvestiya
, Krasnaya zvezda
, and Komsomol'skaya pravda
, were the official organs of party or government agencies, and radio and television were state monopolies. In the late 1980s, these monopolies began to weaken as stories such as the Chernobyl' disaster reached the public in detail, an occurrence that wou
ld not have been possible before glasnost
. Then, after seventy-five years of state control, the media began an era of significantly less restricted activity in 1992.
In the post-Soviet era, the news media have played a central role in forming public opinion toward critical national concerns, including the Chechnya conflict, the economic crisis, and government policies and personalities. In the environment of freewh
eeling expression of opinion, public figures such as Boris Yeltsin and government actions such as the Chechnya campaign have received ruthless criticism, and the deterioration of Russia's environment, public health, national defense, and national economy
has been exposed thoroughly, if not always accurately. However, the national and local governments have exerted heavy pressure on the print and broadcast media to alter coverage of certain issues. Because most media enterprises continue to depend on gover
nment support, such pressure often has been effective.
The Print Media
In the first post-Soviet years, major newspapers presented varied approaches to critical issues. Among the most influential titles were Izvestiya
(in Soviet times, the organ of the Politburo, but after 1991 an independent periodical owned by its employees, with a daily circulation in 1995 of about 604,765); Nezavisimaya gazeta
, 1995 daily circulation about 50,400; and the weekly Argumenty i fakty
(1995 circulation about 3.2 million) (see table 27, Appendix). But by the mid-1990s, a new atmosphere of intense competition was bringing rapid change to the print media. In 1995 an estimated 10,000 newspapers and periodicals were registered, including m
ore than twenty daily newspapers published in Moscow. The thousands of small regional newspapers that appeared after 1991 were plagued by low advertising revenue, high production costs, an increasingly apathetic public, and intense pressure from local aut
horities to slant content. But in the mid-1990s, local newspapers gained readers because of increased regional independence; they also benefited from the competition that television gave to national newspapers in providing the regions with news from Mosco
w and the rest of the world.
In 1995 the Moscow daily Nezavisimaya gazeta
, which for five years remained true to its name (the independent newspaper) by refusing advertising and state subsidies, was forced to close because circulation had dropped to about 35,000 and many top journalists had left for more lucrative positions. T
he paper subsequently resumed publication under the ownership of a large bank consortium (the Unified Bank) with close ties to the Government. Pravda
, formerly the main organ of the CPSU and still representing antireform positions, underwent numerous crises in the early and mid-1990s. Purchased by a Greek publishing firm in 1992, its circulation dropped from about 10 million in the 1980s to around 165
,000 in 1995. After changing its name to Pravda 5
in mid-1996, the newspaper broadened its procommunist position somewhat. The decline of Pravda
left Sovetskaya Rossiya
and Zavtra
as the chief organs of the antireform faction of the legislature.
Official organs still have a place in the media, however; Rossiyskaya gazeta
, the heavily subsidized organ of the Government, publishes most of that body's official documents, including laws and decrees. Rossiyskiye vesti
, organ of the office of the president, reaches about 150,000 Russians daily. Both newspapers feature strongly pro-Government positions. The third official national newspaper, Krasnaya zvezda
, representing the Ministry of Defense, acquired a reputation in the 1990s as strongly pro-Yeltsin.
Although Russia's newspapers offer readers diverse opinions on most issues, the quality of Russian journalism remains relatively low, and objectivity is random. Journalists generally do not verify their sources fully or are denied access to relevant in
dividuals. A 1995 official report on press freedom indicated that reporters without special connections have no better access to state officials than their counterparts did in the Soviet era. Most newspapers make no clear distinction between objective rep
orts and editorials, and, according to a 1995 report by the trade magazine Zhurnalist
, most have some connection to a political party or faction.
Data as of July 1996
|
