(Interfax – June 12, 2013) Russian rights activists and bloggers have criticized a bill protecting the feelings of religious believers, which the State Duma passed in the third and final reading on 11 June. The law, prompted by the controversial Pussy Riot “punk prayer” in 2012 in Moscow’s main cathedral, provides up to three years’ jail for offending religious feelings. […]
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(Kremlin.ru – Moscow, June 11, 2013) Vladimir Putin visited the new Russia Today broadcasting centre and met with the channel’s leadership and correspondents. The President toured the production control room, the sound editing booth, the English, Spanish and Arabic desks, and a visual effects studio. Russia Today is a Russian international multilingual media company, which comprises five 24-hour television channels: […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, June 12, 2013) A Russian parliamentary committee approved for review a new controversial anti-piracy law dubbed “the Russian SOPA” by critics after a similar US bill. The bill will undergo on Friday the first of three required readings in the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, and may be passed by mid-July, […]
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(Interfax – June 11, 2013) Russians have become more intolerable to homosexuality over the past few years, and the share of opponents of same-sex marriages has grown, the VTSIOM pollster has reported. Eighty-eight percent of Russian citizens welcome the proposed ban on the propaganda of homosexuality, compared to 86 percent in 2012, and only 7 percent support it. “A relative […]
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(Eurasia Daily Monitor: Volume 10, Issue 109 – Pavel K. Baev – Jamestown Foundation – jamestown.org – June 10, 2013) The explosion of public protests in Istanbul makes a strong but ambivalent impression on the development of the vacillating political crisis in Russia; the state-controlled Russian television channels prefer to give them minimal and unsympathetic coverage, focusing instead on the flooding […]
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(Interfax – Moscow, June 8, 2013) Russian Public TV is not planning to cancel its Social Network programme, the next episode will air on 10 June. The channel’s press service told Interfax on Saturday (8 June) that the 7 June edition of the programme was not aired for technical reasons. “No-one is closing the programme, it will continue to run. […]
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(Interfax – KYIV, June 6, 2013) Only three social institutes – the Church, the media and the Armed Forces – enjoy confidence of Ukrainians, according to the survey done by the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation and the Razumkov Center. Some 31.7% trust the Church fully, 38.4% are inclined to trust, 10.6% are not inclined, and 9.3% have no confidence […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Ben Aris – May 31, 2013) And so it starts. The articles slating US talk show icon Larry King for agreeing to do a series of shows for the Kremlin-sponsored RT (nee Russia Today) have begun to flow, full of the predictable bile and vitriol. Hey, Larry King: Have You Ever Watched Russia Today? […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Alexander Bratersky – May 30, 2013) Russian television has often been labeled a Kremlin propaganda tool by its critics, with the intelligence of many who take it at face value being disdained by its opponents, unlike those who rely on the internet. But an American professor, whose book on Russian TV influence was recently translated […]
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(RIA Novosti – May 28, 2013) Russia’s Public TV (OTR), a new public service broadcaster launched on 19 May, is now broadcasting online and can be watched worldwide, Anatoliy Lysenko, the channel’s general director, told Russian state-owned RIA Novosti news agency on 28 May. Earlier, the channel’s internet broadcast was only available to IP addresses in Russia. As of 1700 […]
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(RIA Novosti – May 25, 2013(?)) Vladimir Pozner, a distinguished Russian journalist and veteran television presenter, has expressed dismay at the current state of journalism in Russia. During an “open lecture” which he gave at the multimedia centre of Russian state news agency RIA Novosti, Pozner said the attitude to freedom of the press was “cynical” in Russia. “The smaller […]
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(Kennan Institute – wilsoncenter.org/program/kennan-institute – Mary Elizabeth Malinkin and Andrey Miroshnichenko – May 22, 2013) Interview with Andrey Miroshnichenko, Fulbright-Kennan Institute Research Scholar, upon the completion of his grant, Spring 2013 Malinkin: During your Fulbright scholarship you have been looking at the question “Will Russian media go the way of American media?” What are your thoughts about this, based on […]
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(Interfax – Sochi, May 22, 2013) Dmitriy Peskov, press secretary to the Russian president, has described reports that the Kremlin was taking film-making under its control as fiction but stressed that films produced with state money should have matching content. “A number of mass media outlets, including the (business) newspaper Vedomosti, have said that all of Surkov’s (Vladislav Surkov, once […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, May 22, 2013) Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev is not changing his position regarding the need for the government to keep out of the media, especially in the regions, and he regrets that this has yet to be done. “It’s a shame that we didn’t bring this topic to its conclusion. The government’s presence in the media […]
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(Kennan Institute Meeting Report – wilsoncenter.org/program/kennan-institute – Mackensie Knorr – April 12, 2013) “We strive to get all the information to put together the full picture. All questions must be answered, and there shouldn’t be any holes in the story,” said Svetlana Reiter, freelance journalist for Bolshoi Gorod, among other magazines. At a 12 April conference at the Kennan Institute, […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – May 22, 2013) One of Russia’s most internationally renowned journalists, Masha Gessen, has said that she will probably move to New York to join her son, who is studying in the U.S. Gessen, 46, moved with her family to the U.S. in 1981, returning to Moscow to establish a career as a journalist covering Russia […]
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(Interfax – May 20, 2013) The first day of broadcast of the Russian Public TV (OTR), which was launched on 19 May, has received extensive feedback from pundits and journalists. The channel’s vague prospects and the coverage of non-topical issues have become the main points of criticism. “The project envisages the appearance of a discussion platform. But to make it […]
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(RIA Novosti – May 16, 2013) Russian Public TV (OTR) programme director Stanislav Arkhipov has said that the television channel, which is set to launch on 19 May, will concentrate on news but will try to avoid emphasis on “know-it-all Moscow”, Russian RIA Novosti news agency reported on 16 May. According to the Public Opinion Foundation (FOM), 50 per cent […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – May 8, 2013) President Barack Obama’s administration has come under fire for its desire to speak off the record in some meetings with journalists. But what if the administration inadvertently breaks its own rules? That’s what appeared to happen this week when the U.S. State Department arranged a teleconference with journalists to discuss Secretary of […]
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(Institute of Modern Russia – imrussia.org – Donald N. Jensen – May 2, 2013) It is often argued that Russia’s democratic future is assured by the progressive and pro-Western attitudes of its youth. Donald N. Jensen, Resident Fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, contends that the reality is more complex. […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, May 3, 2013) Russia performed miserably in three major ratings by prominent Western media watchdogs released this week to mark World Press Freedom Day on Friday. Russian President Vladimir Putin retained a place on the Predators of Freedom of Information index by the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders, published on Friday. The report called Putin a […]
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(Moscow Times – moscowtimes.com – May 3, 2013) An international media watchdog has called President Vladimir Putin a “predator” of free press and lumped him together with the likes of new Chinese President Xi Jinping and the Italian Mafia. The France-based Reporters Without Borders released an updated list of 39 “Predators of Freedom of Information” for World Press Freedom Day […]
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(Kremlin.ru – April 25, 2013) Moscow After the Direct Line programme, Vladimir Putin met with members of the media to answer their questions. QUESTION: Mr President, 85 questions, 85 answers, 85 people this is quite a lot. And all the questions were important. But there were nearly 2.5 million people who asked questions. Will all these questions be organised […]
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(Kremlin.ru – April 25, 2013) (transcript continued) Moscow KIRILL KLEYMENOV: Thank you, Novoshakhtinsky. Thank you, Primorye. Let’s give the opportunity to ask a question to… MARIA SITTEL: Just one second. On the topic of adoption, I have a question from Marina from Vladivostok. Mr President, is it possible to look into the legislative aspects of letting the adopted children access […]
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(Kremlin.ru – April 25, 2013) Moscow Direct Line with Vladimir Putin was broadcast live on Channel One, Rossiya-1 and Rossiya-24 TV networks and Mayak, Vesti FM and Radio Rossii radio stations. During the programme, the President answered more than 85 questions from Russians on the most pressing social and political issues. The total duration of the programme was 4 hours […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – April 26, 2013) Russian President Vladimir Putin broke his own record with his longest ever annual Q&A meet the people press conference. In just under five hours the president attempted to answer as many of the more than 3m questions submitted by Russians on topics covering the gamut of issues. Widely ridiculed by western […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – April 23, 2013) KIROV, Russia — A court in Russia’s Kirov Oblast has rejected a request from anticorruption blogger Aleksei Navalny for a further delay in his trial. Navalny had asked for more time for his lawyers to examine the 28 volumes of documents associated with his case. Navalny is accused of being involved in the […]
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(Interfax – April 22, 2013) The format of Russian TV presenter and opposition activist Kseniya Sobchak’s weekly political talk show “Gosdep-3”, aired on Internet and satellite Dozhd TV channel, will be changed, Interfax news agency reported on 22 April, quoting Dozhd managing director Natalya Sindeyeva. “The programme is by no means being closed. We are suspending it in order to […]
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(opendemocracy.net – April 23, 2013 – Zygmunt Dzieciolowski, Alexei Levinson, and Mikhail Sokolov) Mikhail Sokolov is an ex Radio Liberty journalist and a historian. Alexei Levinson is sociologist and senior researcher at the Levada Center, Russia’s leading polling organisation, Moscow. Zygmunt Dzieciolowski is a Polish journalist who has covered Russia and other post Soviet republics for European media since 1989. […]
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(Kennan Institute – www.wilsoncenter.org/program/kennan-institute – Mackensie Knorr – April 12, 2013) Meeting Summary “We strive to get all the information to put together the full picture. All questions must be answered, and there shouldn’t be any holes in the story,” said Svetlana Reiter, freelance journalist for Bolshoi Gorod, among other magazines. At a 12 April conference at the Kennan Institute, […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, April 18, 2013) Boris Reznik, secretary of the Russian Union of Journalists and a State Duma deputy, believes negative tendencies are emerging in Russian journalism. “The situation in information policies is worsening,” Reznik said at the tenth congress of the Russian Union of Journalists on Thursday. Specifically, Reznik said that “our media legislation needs further improvement.” “We […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW. April 18, 2013) Russian President Vladimir Putin greeted the delegates of the 10th congress of the Russian Union of Journalists, the Kremlin press service said. “Your forum is important both for journalists and public life in Russia as a whole because journalists have always been not just “chroniclers”, but immediate participants in key events of Russian history. […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Nora FitzGerald, RBTH – April 18, 2013) It’s a tough and dangerous business and economically, journalism is wildly insecure. But some of Russia’s independent print journalists say their work is at a higher level than ever before. Elizaveta Osetinskaya, the husky-voiced, world-weary-at-36 editor-in-chief of the Russian edition of Forbes Magazine, made a statement […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, April 17, 2013) A website leaked a video on Wednesday showing President Vladimir Putin apparently criticizing senior politicians at a meeting with ministers and governors the previous day, just hours before Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev addressed the Russian parliament. The video of the meeting on housing issues, published by Russia’s Life News website, shows Putin asking […]
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(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Kristen Blyth – April 15, 2013) When a journalist dies in Russia, people may pay attention, but the crime usually goes unsolved. According to some observers, this may not change for a long time. When Mikhail Beketov, a journalist who was brutally attacked in 2008, died in a hospital last week, Oleg Kashin, a journalist […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Michael Bohm – April 12, 2013) Michael Bohm is opinion page editor of The Moscow Times. State Duma Deputy Alexei Mitrofanov, who heads the Duma committee regulating the media, came up with a new idea two weeks ago to fight the Kremlin’s battle against “insulting speech” aimed at politicians: increase the fines against media outlets […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – April 8, 2013) A controversial interview with Konstantin Ernst, general director of state-owned Channel One, has caused a scandal in social networks and the media, raising questions of press freedom and journalist ethics. The interview was taken in 2008 by Yevgeny Levkovich, who was a freelance correspondent for the Russian edition of Rolling Stone magazine. […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Yekaterina Kravtsova – April 8, 2013) Anti-Kremlin leader Alexei Navalny walks methodically past a crowd of protesters standing behind metal barricades on Bolotnaya Ploshchad, heading for a stage. Two baby-faced police officers step out of his way, blank expressions on their faces. “We’re with you,” a man in sunglasses says to Navalny. “Thanks,” Navalny answers […]
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(RIA Novosti, MOSCOW, April 2, 2013) Russian President Vladimir Putin has attended the inauguration of a building that will host the Club of the Cheerful and Sharp-Witted, or the KVN, humor show in Moscow. The ceremony took place on Monday night at the former Havana cinema building, which has been remodeled with Putin’s backing to accommodate Russia’s most popular […]
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(Interfax – Moscow, April 1, 2013) Russian Prime Minister Dmitriy Medvedev has congratulated the editorial staff of Novaya Gazeta on the 20th anniversary of the publication, saying that “it is precisely such independent and responsible journalism that modern Russia needs”. (Novaya Gazeta is a liberal newspaper often critical of the authorities and known for its investigative journalism and focus on […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Claire Bigg – April 1, 2013) Few Russian newspapers have faced as much adversity as “Novaya gazeta.” Best known for its hard-hitting investigative reports on government corruption and rights abuses in the North Caucasus, the newspaper has come under intense government pressure in its two decades of existence. It has battled several high-profile lawsuits, suffered serious […]
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(RIA Novosti – March 26, 2013) A research conducted by RIA Novosti Research Centre has shown that the trust of Russians towards the internet is growing, whereas TV is losing its popularity as a source of information, RIA Novosti news agency reported on 26 March. In December 2012, media experts and heads of Russian leading media houses took part in […]
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MOSCOW. March 25 (Interfax) – Alexei Pushkov, chairman of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs, believes the liberal media have assumed the role of the right-wing opposition. “The right-wing opposition is now extremely weak. The liberal media have assumed its role. Their attacks on the State Duma and the Kremlin are not just episodes, but a tough fight for […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – March 25, 2013) Russian became the second most frequently used language on the Internet in 2013, having passed Germany by a narrow margin, according to a report by analytical company W3 Techs. The company counted the number of sites in each language regardless of the number of hits the sites get, Vedomosti reported Friday. The […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – www.rbth.ru – Dmitry Romendik, special to RBTH – March 21, 2013) In recent years, all Russian political satires have gradually shifted to the Internet, though experts say Russian TV audiences want to see more. “Yes, Mr. President,” a new political sitcom on one of Russia’s main television channels, generated immediate interest in the mass media. […]
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(Interfax – Moscow, March 19, 2013) Russian society should be ready for manifestations of extremism in the internet to be viewed and punished appropriately, as those made outside the net, the head of the State Duma committee for information policy, information technologies and communications, Aleksey Mitrofanov, has said. “I think that the fight against extremism in the internet will gradually […]
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(Interfax – Moscow, 13 March 2013) The Presidential Council for Human Rights has called for a reform to denationalize federal TV channels in the next few years because it believes that the level of the authorities’ influence on their information policy is blocking the formation of an appropriate picture of modern Russian society. “The Council considers it necessary to recommend […]
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MOSCOW. March 11 (Interfax) – The United States and Russia share the opinion that common rules of guaranteeing cyber security must be worked out, U.S. ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul said in an interview published by Kommersant.Vesti magazine on Monday. However, there is one moment on which our points of view coincide with the Russian authorities. The issue is cyber […]
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Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2013 From: “Russian Analytical Digest (RAD)” <newslist@isn.ch> Subject: No.123: The Russian Media Landscape RUSSIAN ANALYTICAL DIGEST Newsletter 21 February 2013/No. 123 The Russian Media Landscape To download this issue please click here: http://www.css.ethz.ch/publications/DetailansichtPubDB_EN?rec_id=2432 Analyses Putin and Russia’s Crippled Media, by Robert W. Orttung and Christopher Walker, Washington, D.C. Open Government Partnership in a Regime that Is […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, March 1, 2013 – http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2013/03/window-on-eurasia-five-new-statistics.html) Five new statistics about Russia this past week one about Muslims in the army, a second about the state of its roads, a third about the number of illegal migrants in the country, a fourth about Russian attitudes toward religious instruction in the schools, and a […]
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