Thought this
might be of interest, especially those who have discussed the changes in Russia
of late and its role in global geopolitics. KwC
Russia will air its view of the
world
Kim Murphy, LA Times, June 08, 2005
MOSCOW — Faced with international criticism over the Yukos Oil Co.
crackdown, the war in Chechnya and a perceived rollback of democratic freedoms,
the Russian government announced Tuesday that it would launch a 24-hour
satellite television station in English to offer a glimpse of the world
through Russian eyes.
Officials overseeing the $30-million-a-year project, dubbed Russia's BBC by its
backers, said the broadcasts would remain outside direct government control but
would present a Russian perspective on issues such as the war in Iraq and the
proposed European Union constitution, a view not usually heard in the
international mass media.
Backers hope to have the service, Russia Today, operating by
the end of 2005. Financing for the first year's budget will come from a
combination of government and private lending sources that have yet to be
determined. In the future, they see a mix of government funding, grants and
advertising revenue.
Analysts said that the service would almost certainly act as a
Kremlin mouthpiece but that its financial viability would be determined by its
willingness to present alternative viewpoints and a realistic view of political
events unfolding in Russia. "It is obvious that
the Kremlin is not satisfied with the current information being reported about
Russia and wants to create a new image for the country," said
Manana Aslamazyan, director of Internews Russia, a nonprofit
organization that supports independent media. "It is an effort to
create an external image of the 'managed democracy' that we are building and to
show it in an attractive way," she said. "But
I hope that the Kremlin will have enough political foresight to understand it
is necessary to show a real picture of Russia, if they want people to watch it."
The announcement followed a report last week that a unit of the
state-controlled natural gas giant, Gazprom, was buying a majority share of the
influential daily newspaper Izvestia.
The television project is reportedly the brainchild of Mikhail Y. Lesin,
a wealthy media businessman and an advisor to President Vladimir V. Putin. It
is being shepherded by RIA Novosti, the official Russian information agency.
"Many foreigners are surprised to see
that Russia is different from what they see in media reports. We will try to
present a more balanced picture," said Margarita Simonyan, a
former Kremlin reporter for state television who has been appointed editor in
chief of the project. "It's going to be an information channel with
competing points of view, so the audience can make up its mind about what is
right and what is wrong," she said.
RIA Novosti's managing director, Svetlana V. Mironyuk, told reporters at a news
conference held to announce the launch of the station that it would not be
feasible in the competitive global TV industry to operate a news operation
strictly as a propaganda tool.
"It is almost impossible to impose your own point
of view among other opinions because the information space is too huge. There are literally scores of alternatives,"
Mironyuk said. "But the idea is to
provide an international audience with an understanding of what is going on in
Russia, from Russia's point of view."
To compile a full report of news, weather, sports and documentaries, officials
said, they will rely on translations of reports from Russian state TV, staffers
at Novosti and the Itar-Tass news agency and freelance correspondents around
the world. Simonyan, 26, and other
staff members were chosen because of their youth and lack
of exposure to the propaganda-style news operations of the Soviet era, officials
said. "We're starting from scratch, and we wanted to have a
team of people who are younger than 30 years old. We want this to be a new kind
of television," Mironyuk said. "We know we're taking a risk. But at the same time, we think the risk
will be worth it."
In recent months, government officials have frequently complained that
foreign media have misrepresented Putin's attempts to build democracy on
Russia's own timeline and with its constraints. A particular sore point is the recent
trial of Yukos Oil founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky, often depicted in the West as
a martyred hero, while most Russians see his conviction on fraud and
tax-evasion charges as a positive step for the country.
Putin also has been perplexed by the West's focus on human rights abuses by his
nation's security services in the separatist republic of Chechnya, a conflict
he sees as part of the international war on terrorism. But Mikhail V. Seslavinsky, director of
the federal Press and Mass Media Communications Agency, said a Russian global
satellite network also might provide the world with an alternative view of the
war in Iraq, the global economy and the EU constitution, which was rejected
last week by voters in France and the Netherlands.
"Russia is close to Europe. It is among
the [top] five countries, based on its gold reserves,"
Seslavinsky said. "Russia has
reoriented its currency basket in euros. Yet there was no voice from Russia in
any of the news about the European constitution."
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-russtv8jun08,1,3295649.story
