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How Russia Reported the NTV Affair

Russia’s regional press conducted an information war with NTV

by Emil Pain

Emil Pain is the Galina Starovoitova Fellow on Human Rights and Conflict Resolution at the Kennan Institute/ Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington D.C. and a former adviser to Russian President Boris Yeltsin.

Predictions that Vladimir Putin’s presidency would flow by without major political scandals, that it would be “boring,” uninteresting for the press, so far have not proven true. Coming on the heels of the “Kursk” submarine story, the events surrounding NTV, the newspaper Segodnya, and the journal Itogi have turned out to be among the most actively and widely discussed in Russia. An Internet search using the key words “NTV and Gazprom” turned up several thousand reports from the regional press; I looked at about 200.^¹

Assessments of the transfer of NTV and Media-Most into Gazprom’s hands were varied, but each of them can be attributed to one of three concepts.

The liberal concept defines the events as a purposeful action of the Putin administration and the beginning of the Russian Government’s offensive against freedom of speech.
The Communists and Russian nationalists (the leftist nationalist concept) welcome the suppression of NTV and other media instruments of the oligarch Gusinsky as they are, allegedly, in opposition to Russia and Russians. They “for 10 years imposed on us the American cult of ugliness… We’ve had it with these CIA psychological methods that break the people’s mentality.”^² Furthermore, the Communists and Russian nationalists have no doubt that Putin ordered NTV’s destruction; and for this they support him.
The protectionist concept, to the contrary, was invoked to prove that the president was not involved in the events surrounding Gusinsky’s holdings, that the dispute was explicitly economic and legal in nature. This concept has in common with the Communists a dislike for the “oligarch’s for-sale media.”

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ddly enough, each of these three concepts was brought forth in its own particular way. The Communist concept, for the most part, through the letters of workers and the announcements of social organizations. The liberal concept, beyond open letters and appeals of the intelligentsia, through short announcements of strikes or other actions in support of NTV, for example: “The Editor-in-Chief of the newspaper Arsenevskie Vesti went on a five day hunger strike in support of NTV.”^³ Analytical commentary of the events surrounding NTV by liberal authors was extremely rare.

The “protectionist,” pro-government concept, on the contrary, was presented solely in the genre of pro-government commentary. Official regional (oblast’) newspapers that published these commentaries assigned their best publicists and abundantly quoted prominent Moscow authors loyal to the president, for example the journalist Stanislav Kondrashev, famous in Soviet times; sometimes they specially ordered articles from such master journalists as Leonid Zhukovitsky.^⁴

However, disregarding the varied names and the difference of opinions and creative style of the authors, their products ended up being surprisingly similar in structure. In each article, the author avoided even posing the question: “Who can gain from the suppression of the oppositional NTV?” Every article included identical proof of the non-involvement of the president and singularly welcomed the slandering of NTV. Below are examples of this technology of “brainwashing,” each including five mandatory elements.

“This is an economic, not political feud.” This assertion was repeated like a chant: “Gazprom-Media approaches NTV very rationally, as it would any debtor of the corporation” or “In this case we, of course, observe the classic Russian variant of redistribution of ownership ‘for debts.’”^⁵ At the same time, the authors clearly were nervous about their version and even, in a way, made excuses: “This is a financial question, of which I’m not a specialist” (Leonid Zhukovitsky), “I don’t have any desire to spell out the secret motives” (Stanislav Kondrashev), “I’m not planning on looking in others pockets…”^⁶, “I don’t understand the details of financial operations…”^⁷

And then there’s Alexander Ryazov from Surgut, evidently “understanding the details” of such operations, and not shy about “looking in the pockets” of Gazprom, showed that more than half of the state company’s expenditures on press were not its own, but state budget resources (for this reason the company was censured by the Russian Accounting Bureau). Further, he maintains that if it wanted to resolve the financial questions that it could have tried to sell the debts of Most-Media: “…furthermore, that there are potential buyers. Instead, Gazprom through its actions brought almost complete depreciation of the shares in NTV. The fact that Gazprom-Media is planning to replace not only the economic, but the editorial management calls for caution.” And, of course, the author writes: “What does a change in ownership mean without considering the social and political importance of NTV…even certain stock companies are given special treatment—for example, Tyumenenergo and Tyumenaviatrans also have debts, but they are not ruined, because they are considered important to society. This situation cannot be made into a discussion of ownership—after all NTV is not some company producing shoes. It’s a political holding.”^⁸

“Don’t mix Putin up in this.” The Moscow masters delicately defended the President, almost laughing at the undemocratic and uncivilized nature of the requirements put upon them by the defenders of NTV. “Appeals to President Putin,” writes Kondrashev, “seem illogical, but they’re fully within the Russian mentality, which easily combines democracy—or its likeness—with the eternal tsar-father.” Zhukovitsky seconds this notion: “When Pavel Borodin was put in an American prison, they laughed at calls for Bush to help the prisoner—can the American President really influence the courts? But now they are demanding that the Russian president get involved in the struggle with “Gazprom?” The provincials write aggressively, with swinging blows: “Enough of this ‘exposing’ the head of state”^⁹ or “Putin doesn’t work at Gazprom…”.^¹⁰ This argument is unconvincing: the President indeed does not work at Gazprom, but it is enough that the first deputy of his administration is also the chairman of the board of directors of Gazprom. It’s absolutely certain the gas giant could not undertake this action without the Kremlin’s knowledge.
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NTV is the oligarchy’s servant.” Both Moscow and provincial journalists completely exploited popular hatred for the “oligarchs” and for the wealthy in general. The Muscovites did this more artistically. Kondrashev used poetic rhymes: “Television serves not the muses, but those, who pay…It’s not to the bayonet but to the wallet that the quill is equated.” Zhukovitsky tried to be aphoristic: “You can’t give freedom to anybody—but you need to give debts away…Too often NTV journalists spoke not ‘for themselves’ but ‘for the ownership.’”

The provincial press put more emphasis on current trendy criminal jargon: “NTV is a media racket,”^¹¹ “The caprices of a paid prostitute,”^¹² “Those guys sold out…they were paid good money for their ability to bend so easily.”^¹³ It appears that most of all it was the incomes of the NTV staff that upset the writers’ fraternity: “The wages and credits on which the defenders of free speech were operating, are so far from the average wage of the typical viewer that the NTV journalist also appears to be some sort of oligarch.”^¹⁴

“This is an economic, not political feud.” This assertion was repeated like a chant.

In all the regional press that I reviewed, only one argumentative article turned up that can be placed in contrast to all these simple attacks on NTV. Kirill Rogov, in the Irkutsk paper, hit the target, noting “the problem isn’t that it’s good NTV versus the bad guys. The problem is that it’s bad NTV versus the even worse guys. The destruction of NTV and the victory of the other side will mark the foundation of a propaganda and information monopoly of these same guys, in conditions when the level of censorial pressure on the two Russian state channels is moving on a direct course to Soviet era standards.”^¹⁵

“NTV’s schism.” Each of the defenders of the official concept one way on another played up the fact that some portion of NTV did not leave with Kiselev, but stayed with the channel that ended up in Gazprom’s hands. For a description of who’s who, it’s all laid out in black and white (see table 1 below).^¹⁶

Russian nationalists also were interested in the NTV staff, but only from the point of view of their ethnic backgrounds. A Worker’s Deputy, Vasily Shandybin, went so far in his anti-Semitism that he was ready to defend even the hated Evgeny Kiselev, just so that he wouldn’t be replaced by “Zionists” (as he called the mangers of NTV Alfred Kokh and Boris Jordan). ^¹⁷ And the Rostov nationalist Davydov, who’s tongue could not be twisted around to calling Evgeny Kiselev Russian, called him Russian-speaking: “…the work of the Russian-speaking Kiselev is the truest form of propaganda,

Table 1

Those remaining

Those who are gone

Honest and Independent
“Free-thinking individuals—Leonid Parfenov, Tatyana Mitkova, the founder of the television company Oleg Dobrodeev”

Sold out conformists
“Legions of Evgeny Kiselev’s supporters, a motley group.” “All-out seekers of lucrative posts and worshippers of Gusinsky’s talent for swindling.” “Pathetic individuals!”

Professionals
“Tatyana Mitkova—smart and active, Leonid Parfenov—high professional”;

“…brilliant professionals Parfenov and Mitkova, not willing to fall in line.”

Non-professionals

“The aggressive hysterics of Dibrov, disgraceful methods of polemics in the mouth of Sorokina, political tongue-tying of sharp reporters.”;

“…the theory of the high professionalism of the journalists of NTV that they thought up and advertised themselves.”

Decent

“Leonid Parfenov and Tatyana Mitkova exercised their right to not be pulled into the ugly scandal.

Indecent
Venediktov and other “stars” time after time, in their criticisms, fell lower and lower, sinking to the level of vulgarity.

furthermore it’s aggressively unfriendly to Russia, as a sovereign government, of course, and not a protectorate of Washington.”^¹⁸ The newspaper Zavtra decided to defend the honor, specifically the racial purity, of the new general director of NTV Boris Jordan, publishing an interview with his father Alexei under the garish title “WE COULDN’T BE JEWS…”^¹⁹ Is any commentary necessary?

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TV and the West. To strengthen their readers’ disgust towards the oppositional NTV, proponents of the official concept exploited the new trendy Russian anti-Western tendency. Of course, this was done more delicately than in the Communist press, for example, by Stanislav Kondrashev, who only in passing, but in spite, remarks that there is some kind of “press-representative” from the U.S. State Department, whose job it is to look after free speech in Russia. It is also done with completely unexpected changes of topic. Thus, the Communists rebuked NTV because it did not defend the patriot Borodin, and pro-government journalists curse the channel because it plays up to the Americans and “offends Russia, organizing a press-conference for his (Borodin’s) defenders on its channel.”;^²⁰ the Communist press doesn’t tire of repeating that NTV “sold itself to the West,” more specifically to America, to the CIA. The liberal journalist Leonid Zhukovitsky in contrast to this asks: “Why does the West support NTV with its heart but not its wallet?” Either the Moscow journalist has never heard of Ted Turner and his intention to acquire shares in NTV, or likewise of the Russian parliament that stands in his way, or he is acting on the principle: “it doesn’t matter what you hit, as long as it hurts.”

Results. Disregarding the artificial nature of similar constructions, it was exactly the “defensive” concept that received the majority of popular support: 46 percent of those surveyed suggest that financial problems are the reason for the scandal surrounding NTV and the transfer of ownership, and less than a third see in this event the beginning of an attack on free speech in Russia. And thus 25 percent view Gusinsky as guilty, Kiselev—11 percent, Kokh and Jordan—10 percent, and fewer than the rest—Putin and his circle—all of 9 percent of those surveyed by the All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM)^²¹.

This can in part be explained by the fact that the concept defending the government was disseminated on the two most popular television stations, RTV and ORT, and was also circulated by the majority of newspapers under the control of the regional authorities. Through this it had greater opportunity to grab a much larger audience than the others.

It is also important that the official “version” of this event was for the most part supported (to the detriment of NTV) by the Communist press and met practically no resistance from the liberal press.

Why did this happen? During perestroika, the liberal publishers Nuikin, Batkin, Korotich and Kostikov, Leonid Zhukovitsky and Alexander Radzikhovsky didn’t leave any serious publication of the conservative, Communist, or nationalist press unanswered. Where are they now? Why wouldn’t they be heard (there was no reaction from the regional press) in connection with the events surrounding NTV?

Some have aged, others support the authorities, while others are doubtful that they would be understood today by the silent majority of the population, and therefore they wrote for their own audiences, who didn’t need any explanation, insofar as for them “the political subtext of these pursuits was completely obvious…”^²²

The emerging political climate in the country, in my opinion, was correctly described by the Astrakhan journalist: “The signs of stagnation in Russia, in politics as well as in economics—nearly a Brezhnev renaissance—have already been present a good six months. Glorification of the head of state has been revived. The political elite has practically closed itself off. The mass media are confidently attaching themselves to the power structure.”^²³

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