Russia tightens controls on radio 
 
Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2007 06:47:08 -0500 (CDT)


http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2007/04/22/russia_tightens_controls_on_radio/

Russia tightens controls on radio 50% of reports must be
'positive'

By Andrew E. Kramer, New York Times News Service  |  April 22,
2007

MOSCOW -- At their first meeting with journalists since taking over
Russia's largest independent radio news network, the managers had
startling news of their own: From now on, they said, at least 50
percent of the reports about Russia must be "positive." Article
Tools

Journalists employed by the network, Russian News Service, also say
they were told by the new managers, who are allies of the Kremlin,
that opposition leaders could not be mentioned on the air and the
United States was to be portrayed as an enemy.

How would they know what constituted positive news?

"When we talk of death, violence, or poverty, for example, this is
not positive," said one editor at the station who did not want to be
identified for fear of retribution. "If the stock market is up, that
is positive. The weather can also be positive."

In a darkening media landscape, radio news had been a rare bright
spot.

Now, the implementation of the "50 percent positive" rule at the
Russian News Service leaves an increasingly small number of news
outlets that are not managed by the Kremlin, directly or through the
state national gas company, Gazprom, a major owner of media
assets.

The three national television networks are already state-controlled,
though small-circulation newspapers generally remain independent.

This month alone, a bank loyal to President Vladimir V. Putin
tightened its control of an independent television station,
Parliament passed a measure banning "extremism" in politics and
prosecutors have gone after individuals who post critical comments
on Internet chat rooms.

Parliament is also considering extending state control to Internet
sites that report news, reflecting the growing importance of online
news as the country becomes more affluent and growing numbers of
middle-class Russians acquire computers.

On Tuesday, the police raided the Educated Media Foundation, a
nongovernmental group sponsored by United States and European donors
that helps foster an independent news media.

The police carried away documents and computers that were used as
servers for the websites of similar groups. That brought down a
website run by the Glasnost Defense Foundation, a media rights
group, which published bulletins on violations of press freedoms.

"Russia is dropping off the list of countries that respect press
freedoms," said Boris Timoshenko, a spokesman for the foundation.
"We have propaganda, not information."

With this new campaign, seemingly aimed at tying up the loose ends
before a parliamentary election in the fall that is being carefully
stage-managed by the Kremlin, censorship rules in Russia have
reached their most restrictive since the breakup of the Soviet
Union, media watchdog groups say.

"This is not the USSR, when every print or broadcasting outlet was
preliminarily censored," Masha Lipman, a researcher at the Carnegie
Moscow Center, said in a telephone interview.

Instead, the tactic has been to impose state ownership on media
companies and replace editors with those who are supporters of Putin
-- or offer a generally more upbeat report on developments in Russia
these days.

Parliament on Wednesday passed a law allowing for prison sentences
of as long as three years for "vandalism" motivated by politics or
ideology. Once again, vandalism is interpreted broadly, human rights
groups say, including acts of civil disobedience.

In a test case, Moscow prosecutors are pursuing a criminal case
against a political advocate accused of posting critical remarks
about a member of Parliament on a website, the newspaper Kommersant
reported Friday. ) Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.
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