The press and power in the Russian Federation.

• Author: Jensen, Linda
• Position: Power of the Media in the Global System

The relationship of the Russian government to the central Moscow media has changed enormously during the last eight years. Once fully in control of the media, the government is now forced to resort to various tactics of persuasion and pressure to influence them. In a country where the struggle for power and resources is intense, and the media are often the only means of communicating one's designs to the Russian masses, access to television air time and press coverage has become more coveted than ever by politicians. During the ongoing struggle for glasnost and freedom of speech, many journalists and editors have gained an attitude of independence that has rendered them skeptical of government efforts to reassert control and endowed them with a belief that they possess a right to report and comment on events as they see fit. While in some media this is manifested as journalists strive for fact-based reporting and unbiased coverage, other organs of the media actively participate in the political struggle.

This article traces the steps that eased Soviet and Russian government control over the centrally controlled media and elaborates on recent developments in media-government relations. It also lays out some concrete examples of how media content has changed over the last eight years, illustrating both media independence and instances in which objective media coverage fell victim to the political game that seems perpetually to rule Russia. Finally, it analyzes the role of the media in the ongoing power struggle in Moscow and concludes that, given the precedent of government manipulation of the media and the difficult financial position of most newspapers and television, the media are unlikely to be freed from political influence in the near future. However, because of the independent attitudes cultivated by glasnost, the net result is somewhat of a balance: While the political power struggle continues to influence the media, the media likewise continue to exert a certain independent influence on the power struggle, as well as on their own future.

THE PRE-GORBACHEV ERA

The characteristics of the media in the pre-Gorbachev era are well-documented.(1) journalists were rigorously educated in a fashion which, like most Soviet curricula of higher education, was based on the Marxist-Leninist theories and the current policies of the Communist Party. For most editors and journalists in the 1980s, a book issued in 1979, CPSU [The Communist Party of the Soviet Union]: On the Mass Media and Propaganda functioned as the essential guide to the limits of permissible reporting.(2) Editors at the central news agencies were at the fingertips of the Kremlin via the verkhushka, or direct-line Kremlin telephone on their desks, and their local counterparts were similarly connected to the City Soviet and Regional Party Committees. Judicious following of the party line and working for a central newspaper or major local agency were usually sufficient to become a card-carrying member of the Union of journalists, which united the more loyal journalists and aided in the oversight of their work.(3)

Central control of the media produced predictable results. Altered pictures of the Politburo and glorifying photographs of socialist workers were splashed across front pages of newspapers. Accompanying text reported the outstanding political and economic achievements of the Party and detailed propagandistic speeches at length. It has been frequently recounted that Soviet citizens learned to read the newspapers back to front, searching the back columns for four-line accounts of major accidents or hints of social or political nonconformity. The controlled press was countered by the presence of samizdat, or self-publishing. A widespread phenomenon in the early 1970s and 1980s, samizdat usually consisted of typewritten carbon copies of censored literature, poetry and political thought.

Like the press, television was strictly controlled. The State Committee for Television and Radio (GOSTELERADIO) controlled Russian-language programming for the 15 republics and the bulk of East Central Europe. The nightly news program "Vremya" (Time) had one of the largest viewing audiences in the world -- 15 million -- even though it reported primarily on official activities, presenting its viewers with wholly falsified accounts of meetings and bogus statistics. For television entertainment, viewers usually had the choice of documentaries on the history of the Communist Party and the Second World War, and other political propaganda programs such as "Ya sluzhu Sovietskomu Soyuzu" (I Serve the Soviet Union), a program on the achievements of the Soviet Army. Non-political educational and cultural programs existed, but they typically lacked entertainment value. Thus, although by the mid-1980s these programs reached about 90 million television sets in the Soviet Union, they hardly played as dynamic and significant a role in the political arena as they would play in the next several years.

THE ACCESSION OF GORBACHEV

Mikhail Gorbachev's promotion to the post of general-secretary of the Communist Party in 1985 signalled a new era for the media, but not their immediate independence. During the early months of the Gorbachev era, prior to the initiation of the perestroika and glasnost campaigns, the print and electronic media were utilized for the anti-alcohol and anti-corruption campaigns initiated by Gorbachev and Central Committee member Yegor Ligachev. Even as late as November 1986, "Vremya" continued with old-style programming, beginning newscasts with reports of the over-fulfillment of the plan for the current quarter or reports of increased productivity.

The first indication of the new openness that was to follow came during the January 1986 Twenty-seventh Party Congress. In his speech, Gorbachev made references to the idea of glasnost, "openness," or -- more literally -- "voiceness".(4) Both Gorbachev and the Communist Party, however, had a narrow conception of this meaning: Glasnost was to be limited to making the new Communist Party leadership appear more active in its defense of the average Soviet worker; to legitimizing the tempered changes that the Party wanted to carry out from above; and to attempting to create a modicum of personal popularity for Gorbachev, which would differentiate him from his predecessors.

Official glasnost was inaugurated in the Soviet media immediately after the January 1986 Party Congress. In early April 1986, for instance, "Vremya" broadcast a segment -- soon to become typical -- which covered Gorbachev's visit to Kuibyshev. Greeted by the local population, Gorbachev was shown striking up a conversation with a group of girls from a local collective farm. He immediately pressed them to talk about their problems and -- predictably -- got no response. Finally, one of the farm girls mentioned that the city could use another theater. The discussion continued, touching on local product shortages, child care and other concerns. "Vremya" rolled on for an hour and 50 minutes.(5)

This kind of coverage, publicly discussing problems that emphasized the need for the initial stage of reforms and generally preaching perestroika, was frequent in 1986. Tailored to the goals of the early glasnost-perestroika campaign, it became the norm in 1987, as long news segments covered Gorbachev and his Politburo allies. Not unlike the carefully planned media moments of U.S. presidential campaigns, clips were shown of Gorbachev with workers, women, union leaders, children and members of minority groups, in an attempt to prove his concern for the plight of the average citizen. Moreover, the gathering of prominent figures like Andrei Gromyko behind Gorbachev on the television screen provided visible proof that the Communist Party supported his new ideas.(6)

While producing reports supporting the Party line usually did not create any difficulties for journalists, covering the problems of Soviet socialism -- alcoholism, corruption and the deficit of food and consumer goods -- created numerous dilemmas: How much criticism was too much? What were the censor's limits? Since Gorbachev was roaming the streets pointing out deficits and social problems, shouldn't the media do likewise?

Journalists started cautiously down the road of glasnost, wary of the penalties of stepping out of acceptable boundaries. When commentary seemed necessary, one of the more common defense mechanisms was to substitute a journalistic account with an interview, handing the microphone -- and the risk -- to someone else. In the beginning, when free speech was more restricted, these interviews were typically done with well-established, party-sanctioned commentators and academics. Eventually, as the media progressed from relaying official policy and commentary to seeking out more dissident views, journalists included the input of the proverbial man-on-the-street, the precedent for which Gorbachev had already firmly set. When coverage concerned accidents, such as Chernobyl, and other official admissions of mistakes or failure, such as the Soviet withdrawal from the Afghan war in autumn 1988, man-on-the-street interviews often reached the heart of the matter in a more exacting way than official sources.

This trend from official to unofficial commentary, allowing the individual, in effect, to broadcast his own opinion, was one of the forces that contributed to the blossoming of glasnost. It also illustrated the catapulting of glasnost from a Party-controlled policy to a socially based phenomenon that exerted its own pressure on the policies of the reformist Gorbachev government.

THE ROLE OF De-STALINIZATION UNDER GORBACHEV

The official Gorbachev policy that unintentionally contributed the most to the disintegration of government control of the media was the drive for de-stalinization. For the Gorbachev Politburo, de-stalinization was both a tool to legitimize the current government --...