(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – April 29, 2014) Amid growing criticism of its increasingly tighter regulation of the Internet, Russia’s official media watchdog on Monday vowed to continue its fight in the “information war,” saying freedom of speech “does not mean everything is permitted.” The government made clear at an annual meeting of top officials of the […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Vsevolod Pulya, RBTH – April 28, 2014) The Russian search engine was actually registered in the Netherlands and received its first investments from foreign investors. Nevertheless, it believes that this is “common practice for any internet startup.” Russian search engine Yandex has responded to comments by Russian President Vladimir Putin about foreign influences […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – April 29, 2014) Russia’s communications minister has said there is no reason why independent channel Dozhd cannot return to cable television packages, in a sign of hope for the cash-strapped station. Communications and Mass Media Minister Nikolai Nikoforov said nothing was preventing Dozhd from being carried by cable television providers, and that the state was […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Oleg Sukhov – April 28, 2014) Last week, the State Duma gave its final approval to a bill introducing criminal penalties for “spreading lies” about the Soviet Union’s role in World War II. The legislation, under which offenders face up to five years in prison, has prompted renewed allegations that the Kremlin is imposing a […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Alexei Eremenko, RBTH – April 25, 2014) During his annual live TV call-in show on April 18, President Vladimir Putin promised that authorities will stop pressuring the liberal Dozhd TV channel. Dozhd (“Rain”) is now hoping to get picked up again by the cable providers that dropped it at the beginning of the […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – April 19, 2014) The State Duma’s ethics committee will investigate Liberal Democratic Party leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky after the firebrand politician directed a particularly crude and offensive outburst at reporters on Friday. After being asked whether Russia should retaliate against the travel restrictions placed on Russian men by Ukraine, Zhirinovsky went on a foul-mouthed tirade and […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – D. Garrison Golubock – April 21, 2014) A favorable comment made by President Vladimir Putin during his annual call-in show on Thursday seems to have triggered a change of fortune for embattled independent television channel Dozhd, which is threatened with closure after being dropped by numerous major television operators. “If the disappearance of Dozhd from […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Anna Fefelova, special to RBTH – April 21, 2014) Russian bloggers and politicians use social media to discuss the conflict in the Donbass. While Russian state television is giving one perspective on the events in Eastern Ukraine, politicians and opposition bloggers alike have been expressing different views online. Konstantin Dolgov, the Special Representative […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – April 15, 2014) Nabi Abdullaev, a former deputy editor-in-chief of The Moscow Times, will replace Andrew McChesney at the helm of the newspaper later this week, MT publisher Ekaterina Movsumova said Monday. Abdullaev, who most recently headed RIA Novosti’s foreign-language news service, said he would concentrate on further developing The Moscow Times into a major […]
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MOSCOW. April 10 (Interfax) – A member of the Human Rights Council, a Kremlin advisory body, has defended Moscow’s decision not to renew a contract to broadcast Voice of America in Russia. “Russian officials were not proactive in this situation. In this information war, which hasn’t been unleashed by Russia, it’s Moscow that’s been behaving in a gentlemanly way, and […]
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(Interfax – Moscow, April 9, 2014) Secretary of the Union of Journalists of Russia [UJR] Pavel Gutionov has described the current state of affairs in Russian journalism as the most serious crisis in its entire history. “Our profession is experiencing the most serious crisis in its entire history. It has even been suggested that journalism will not survive at all,” […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Dan Pototsky, RBTH – April 7, 2014) This year marks 20 years since the internet first appeared in Russia. The first Soviet internet user, the well-known Soviet-American scientist Anatole A. Klyosov, speaks about the internet in the USSR, espionage and the surreal logic of history in an exclusive interview with RBTH. Anatole A. […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Daisy Sindelar – April 1, 2014) A pro-Kremlin political news site says it has developed a computer algorithm to determine which media outlets are the most anti-Russian. The politonline.ru website, part of the Pravda.ru media holding, says it has created a special system that vets media content for suggestive words and phrasing that cast the Russian […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Natalya Krainova – April 1, 2014) Independent television channel Dozhd has extended its operation for at least 50 days in a fundraising campaign launched to save the channel after major cable networks refused to air it. The money was collected during a week-long telethon from March 24 to 30 that sold yearly subscriptions to Dozhd, […]
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(Interfax – March 31, 2014) The Russian Presidential Human Rights Council urges taking the professional community’s opinions into account when making decisions on closing mass media outlets. “These offensives against independent mass media outlets are characterized with the fact that owners or administrative people are leaving the legal field and operate on general notions of morality, interpreting them in their […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – March 27, 2014) U.S. spying could cost software companies said Communications and Mass Media Minister Nikolai Nikiforov, in a message attached to an Instagram shot of a recent Wall Street Journal article detailing renewed U.S interest in spying on Russia. “U.S. security services have put an end to the further use of U.S. computer software […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Brian Whitmore – March 20, 2014) Propaganda works. Or at least it’s working for the time being. In concluding his speech to a joint session of parliament this week, Vladimir Putin claimed that 92 percent of Russians favored the annexation of Crimea. The number was inflated, but not by much, according to Lev Gudkov, director of […]
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(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Natalia Antonova – March 14, 2014) In the Russian media, the season of change, some of it sad and sudden, continues. Now it is my turn to say my goodbye and announce my imminent departure from The Moscow News. I also want to use this platform to give everyone who is reading this – particularly […]
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(Voice of America – voanews.com – Cecily Hilleary – March 14, 2014) When a Ukrainian women’s plea for freedom went viral in February and received nearly eight million views, it demonstrated the power of social media in spreading the message of Ukraine’s political reform. Yulia Marushevska’s emotional YouTube plea spurred thousands of Ukrainians into the streets, but analysts say it […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Delphine d’Amora – March 12, 2014) Overworked and understaffed, Russia’s fledgling Intellectual Property Rights Court is watching nervously as its case load continues to climb. “Compared to analogous courts in Europe, we have a very high case load … and an increase in workload leads to the risk of a decline in the quality of […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Christopher Brennan – March 11, 2014) Russia’s largest television stations broadcast all over the country, bringing the same faces to Muscovites, Siberians and Caucasus natives alike. However, a new series is taking this a step further, representing Russia’s ethnic diversity in one sitcom family and confronting the controversial topic of race head on. A new […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber – March 12, 2014) RIA Novosti, Russia’s largest state-owned news agency, is undergoing the final stages of its liquidation three months after President Vladimir Putin decreed its dismantlement and mandated the creation of Rossia Segodnya, a global news agency to be headed by a Kremlin loyalist. New details regarding the structure of Rossia […]
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(RIA Novosti – March 12, 2014) One of Ukraine’s largest television providers has announced it will suspend broadcasts of several major Russian channels, the UNN Ukrainian news agency said Wednesday. The TV provider Volya, with about 20 percent of the market, said it was notifying subscribers across the country about the service changes, UNN reported. On Tuesday, the National Television […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Dan Pototsky, RBTH – March 10, 2014) Hackers have taken down several Russian media website in the past week and alleged attacks on defense infrastructure in response to Russia’s actions in Ukraine. On March 7, the website of Rossiyskaya Gazeta, one of the largest Russian dailies, the paper of record of the Russian […]
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(Interfax – March 4, 2014) The heads of Russian leading television stations have responded to their Ukrainian colleagues’ call for unbiased coverage of the ongoing events in Ukraine. The general directors of Channel One, the All-Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company (VGTRK) and NTV, Konstantin Ernst, Oleg Dborodeyev and Vladimir Kulistikov, said in an official statement, posted on the […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Natalya Krainova – February 27, 2014) Less than two weeks ahead of the deadline set by the Kremlin for the abolishment of major state-funded news agency RIA Novosti, its employees say they still lack details about what will happen to their jobs or when the company will cease its work. The wire service is set […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Oleg Sukhov – February 19, 2014) Yekaterina Pavlova, a former deputy head of the pro-Kremlin Voice of Russia radio station, has been appointed chief executive of opposition-leaning radio station Ekho Moskvy. The decision Tuesday triggered speculation that the Kremlin was seeking to bring the station under its control. The news also comes shortly after Dozhd, […]
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[“What the Papers Say, Feb. 18, 2014” – Moscow Times/BBC Monitoring – themoscowtimes.com/news/article/what-the-papers-say-feb-18-2014/494765.html] The Moscow Times and BBC Monitoring review Russian print publications. Nezavisimaya Gazeta 1. Alexandra Samarina article headlined “Waiting for personnel changes” predicts that a number of senior officials including governors may lose their jobs after the Sochi Olympics. The author reports on the meeting of the State […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – February 18, 2014) State television host Dmitry Kiselyov, known for his strong opposition to gay rights in Russia, has been awarded the Order of Service to the Fatherland by President Vladimir Putin. A presidential decree published on the government’s legal documents website said the honor was bestowed on Kiselyov for his contribution to Russia’s “social […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, February 18, 2014) Three newly released statistics – one on births in Kazakhstan, a second on how Russians understand events in Ukraine, and a third on where websites of the .ru domain are hosted – say more about where the Russian Federation is heading than do more prominent declarations of Moscow political […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – D. Garrison Golubock and Olga Chetina – February 17, 2014) Feb. 11 marked the 124th anniversary of the birth of Boris Pasternak, the famed Soviet author best known for his book “Doctor Zhivago,” which was published abroad after being banned in the Soviet Union. Pasternak’s birthday was celebrated with great fanfare by Russia’s literati, including […]
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[“Putin and the media – Dreams about Russia – Beyond the spectacle of the Sochi Olympics is a crackdown on Russia’s media” – The Economist – February 15, 2014 – economist.com/news/europe/21596580-beyond-spectacle-sochi-olympics-crackdown-russias-media-dreams-about-russia] The Economist reports on concerns over media freedoms in Russia, including actions taken in the lead-up to the Sochi Olympics: Just as Vladimir Putin’s greatest project [the Sochi Olympics] […]
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[“Russians use ‘love’ emoticon on Facebook more than any other” – San Francisco Business Times – Steven E.F. Brown- February 13, 2014 – bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/2014/02/russians-love-emoticon-facebook-berkeley.html?page=all] The San Francisco Business Times reports that the top emoticon for Russian facebook users is the love icon. Yet researchers at Cal-Berkeley and Cambridge provide a mixed assessment of what that means: Russians choose an emoticon […]
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[“What the Papers Say, Feb. 14, 2014” – The Moscow Times/BBC Monitoring – themoscowtimes.com/news/article/what-the-papers-say-feb-14-2014/494555.html] The Moscow Times and BBC Monitoring parse the latest news from Russian print newspapers. Nezavisimaya Gazeta 1. Sergei Neverov article headlined “People’s support is priority” says that today the State Duma is to pass in the third reading a bill on elections to the State Duma […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – February 13, 2014) Russia came 148th out of 180 countries on this year’s press freedom rankings from Reporters Without Borders, keeping the same spot that it occupied last year. France-based Reporters Without Borders said that the level of freedom of information violations throughout the world increased by 1.8 percent compared with 2012. Some of the […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anna Dolgov – February 11, 2014) Irina Rodnina, the famed figure skater who lit the Olympic flame at the Sochi opening ceremony, has said that a racially insensitive tweet sent from her account and featuring U.S. President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle was posted by hackers. The doctored – and, in the eyes of […]
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MOSCOW, February 10 (RIA Novosti) – A reporter for Russia’s leading television channel admitted lifting huge chunks of a nationalist report about the Sochi Olympics’ opening ceremony for use in her own report, which aired over the weekend. Irada Zeinalova said she quoted a report by Kremlin-bashing web resource Sputnik & Pogrom without attribution for a broadcast on Channel One. […]
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MOSCOW, February 10 (RIA Novosti) – Russia’s major satellite provider stopped broadcasting Dozhd independent television channel Monday after the network became embroiled into a controversy over an opinion poll about World War II. Tricolor TV, Russia’s biggest satellite TV provider, said a week ago that its board of directors had unanimously decided to exclude the liberal Dozhd channel from all […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – John Freedman, Moscow Times theater editor – February 10, 2014) I once wrote most of what I planned to be a book about Russia. I got as far as sending chapters out to publishers. One of the few editors who was kind enough to reject me personally explained why my proposal was not of interest. […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Michael Bohm – February 7, 2014) Michael Bohm is opinion page editor of The Moscow Times. For Russians watching state television news over the past several weeks, the message about the political turmoil in Ukraine is clear: The anti-government protests are a U.S. plot. Take, for example, this Jan. 22 evening news broadcast on Channel […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Tom Balmforth – MOSCOW – February 5, 2014) Just shy of four years ago a new private television channel appeared on the Russian media scene. With a new generation of talent, snappy and hip programming, and a politically independent line, Dozhd (Rain) TV presented a sharp contrast to the drab and predictable Kremlin-controlled media. And it […]
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(Interfax – February 4, 2014) A number of members of the presidential human rights council have sent a letter to Russian Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev asking him to check the actions of major Russian satellite TV operators that have dropped independent television channel Dozhd from their packages, privately-owned Russian news agency Interfax reported on 4 February. “We believe that the […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Oleg Sukhov – February 5, 2014) Dozhd, Russia’s only opposition-oriented television channel, on Tuesday announced that the decision of large cable providers to drop it could lead to its closure and attributed the move to a Kremlin-driven campaign to get rid of them. All major cable companies, including OnLime, Akado, NTV Plus and VimpelCom, dropped […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, February 4, 2014) The Russian authorities are putting ever more pressure on the Internet in the hopes of imposing Kremlin control on the last relatively free segment of the Russian media, but their efforts are being countered by those most affected who are offering hat they describe as “very easy” workarounds so […]
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(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Natalia Antonova – January 31, 2014) The scandal surrounding the independent Dozhd TV channel has so far progressed in a predictable and chilling fashion: Media organization does something that many people find to be tactless and/or offensive, said people express their dismay, the media organization apologizes… and then surrealism begins to take over. In case […]
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(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Natalia Antonova – January 30, 2014) Anna Arutunyan’s “The Putin Mystique” came out in Britain this week, and this article is not an attempt to review the book. Although we frequently highlight the accomplishments of our friends and colleagues as part of the buys of the week rubric, an actual review of Anna’s book would […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, January 29, 2014) Any Russian with access to the Internet can get some idea of the dizzying and kaleidoscopic developments in Ukraine, but Russians who rely on government-controlled television are being fed a more or less constant diet of propaganda designed to promote “permanent hysteria” about that country, according to a “Novaya […]
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MOSCOW, January 30 (RIA Novosti) – Staff of an online TV station in Russia face a threat of up to two years in prison after prosecutors announced an “extremism” investigation Thursday into an opinion poll concerning World War II. The liberal Dozhd (“Rain”) channel triggered the ire of conservatives by asking on its website whether the Soviet Union should have […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Eradzh Nidoev – January 29, 2014) While online video streaming in the U.S. has shown that the Internet can be effectively monetized by film and television, the fear of piracy in Russia has limited the spread of such services here. Only now, a few companies are taking the plunge and offering online streaming services, and […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – John Freedman – January 27, 2014) When the going gets tough, as we have seen repeatedly in recent years, the tough take to Facebook. At least that’s what they do in this part of the world. So it has been with the events in Kiev – call them protests or call them a revolution in […]
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