VZCZCXRO4156
RR RUEHDBU RUEHLN RUEHPOD RUEHSK RUEHVK RUEHYG
DE RUEHMO #1505/01 1601109
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 091109Z JUN 09
FM AMEMBASSY MOSCOW
TO RUCNCIS/CIS COLLECTIVE
RUEHXD/MOSCOW POLITICAL COLLECTIVE
RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 3710

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 MOSCOW 001505 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PHUM KDEM ECON SOCI RS
SUBJECT: CRISIS FAINTLY BOOSTS PRESS FREEDOM; PUBLIC SNOOZES 
 
¶1. (SBU) Summary: Criticism of GOR policy in some print and 
internet media has sharpened as the financial crisis has 
taken hold.  This has raised hopes among some liberal 
observers that the financial crisis will improve press 
freedom in Russia, by forcing GOR officials to be more open 
to criticism as a hedge against popular discontent. 
Criticism of the GOR comes from largely the same sources as 
it did pre-crisis, and liberal stories are aimed at a small 
audience of highly-educated readers who lack the ability to 
influence GOR policy.  Outside of elite groups concentrated 
in large cities, Russians largely continue to ignore 
political issues in favor of stories about business, 
entertainment, or sports, and they continue to derive the 
majority of their information from state-run television. 
Prospects for the media to perform their traditional duty of 
holding government accountable on behalf of an active, 
educated citizenry remain small.  The financial straits 
imposed on media entities by the crisis may ironically help 
press freedom by severing their ties to "sponsors," and thus 
rendering them more independent.  End Summary. 
 
Criticism in print and internet media; none on TV 
--------------------------------------------- ---- 
 
¶2. (SBU) As the financial crisis has deepened, criticism of 
the GOR in print and Internet media has sharpened.  In 
addition to obvious examples such as Novaya Gazeta and the 
New Times, three staid, respected dailies -- Kommersant, 
Vedomosti, and Nezavisimaya Gazeta -- have consistently and 
explicitly criticized the GOR for, among other things, 
preventing opposition marches, the Khodorkovskiy trial, and 
GOR handling of the March mayoral elections in Sochi. 
Vedomosti, which is published in conjunction with the Wall 
Street Journal, has printed articles written by 
Khodorkovskiy; Kommersant praised the most recent U.S. Human 
Rights Report which took Russia to task for a variety of 
rights abuses; and Nezavisimaya Gazeta -- whose owner, 
Konstantin Remchukov, is a former member of the Union of 
Right Forces -- recently ran an editorial entitled "The 
Training of Responsible Citizens to be the Guarantors of the 
Country's Future," which calls for the formation of a genuine 
opposition to the government. 
 
¶3. (SBU) The Internet also contains numerous examples of 
uncensored airing of views in opposition to the government or 
to prevailing national symbols.  In perhaps the most extreme 
example of free rein for an oppositionist, Kremlin irritant 
Valeriya Novodvorskaya wrote on May 8, in response to the 
State Duma proposal to criminalize the questioning of the 
Soviet World War II victory, that the Western allies should 
have defeated Stalin along with Hitler.  (Note: Novodvorskaya 
has not always escaped Kremlin wrath in the past; in August 
2008, Ekho Moskvy removed her from their rolls under GOR 
pressure after she defended the actions of the terrorist 
Shamil Basayev.  End Note.)  The website that published this 
posting, grani.ru, contains daily examples of anti-GOR 
vitriol, but thus far has received no adverse reaction from 
the authorities.  The same may also be said for other 
independent websites, such as gazeta.ru; the websites of 
well-known rights defenders such as Memorial, Oleg Panfilov's 
Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations, or Human Rights 
Watch; or even Khodokovskiy's website. 
 
¶4. (SBU) Broadcast media, however, from which most Russians 
get their news, have largely remained tightly controlled 
during the financial crisis, with brief reports parroting the 
party line, and an emphasis on bland entertainment. 
Independent journalist and human rights activist Svetlana 
Sorokina told us May 19 that she sees such entertainment as 
specifically designed to distract viewers from social and 
economic problems.  She added that she considered the radio 
station Ekho Moskvy and occasional investigative reports on 
REN-TV -- an independent channel that only appears in major 
cities -- to be tiny drops in an ocean of otherwise compliant 
broadcast media. 
 
Most Russians ignore political issues 
------------------------------------- 
 
¶5. (SBU) Even as criticism of the GOR has sharpened, most 
Russians continue to show little interest in political 
issues, favoring instead stories about business, 
entertainment, or sports.  As the quantity of information has 
increased, the quality has decreased.  Sorokina said that 
readers and viewers are drawn to "yellow" journalism and 
tabloids over substantive news reporting.  Government 
accountability has morphed into interest in scandals about 
the personal lives of public figures, and only "sanctioned 
scandals" touch upon any political figures.  Sorokina also 
noted that, as Russians have done historically, many still 
follow the model of the "good tsar and the bad boyars," 
 
MOSCOW 00001505  002 OF 003 
 
 
leaving some people beyond criticism.  Broadcast media have 
repeatedly portrayed Putin personally "solving" economic 
problems around the country.  As Sorokina noted, it is a 
common tactic for politicians in any country to define an 
attack on them as an attack on the country.  In Russia, 
however, Sorokina calls it "the eternal story." 
 
¶6. (SBU) Although all of the necessary information for an 
active populace holding its government accountable is there 
for the taking among some newspapers and websites, few 
Russians are interested.  Expressing a commonly held view 
among media commentators, Oleg Panfilov told us May 13 that 
questions about censorship in Russia are "pointless," because 
an authoritarian government does not need censorship in a 
country where people "do not know how to live like free 
people."  He noted that Kommersant prints only 300,000 copies 
in a country of 141 million people, and therefore that is was 
logical that "Putin went after TV first."  (Note: Senior 
Kommersant correspondent Andrey Kozenko told us June 5 that 
at the time of peresroika, Kommersant issued 1 million 
copies, but that "yellow" publications had taken Kommersant's 
market share.  End Note.)  Panfilov related a joke he had 
heard in which one activist says, "We must change the 
government!", and the other responds, "No -- We need to 
change the population."  In a June 2 conversation, Andrey 
Rikhter of the Center for Media and Law Policy agreed that 
thus far, the public has depended on television information 
as much as it did before the crisis -- "it is cheap, simple, 
and graphic."  Kozenko told us that he had noticed an 
increase of 20 or 30 percent in "hits" on politically 
provocative stories on his paper's website, and added that 
his father, who runs an opposition paper in Saratov, reported 
a recent significant increase in sales.  However, few 
examples of this change in reader/viewer interest have 
emerged. 
 
The five percent solution 
------------------------- 
 
¶7. (SBU) Given that GOR criticism thus comes from largely the 
same sources as it did pre-crisis, and given the high level 
of apolitical sentiment among the Russian populace, it 
follows that liberal stories are aimed at a small audience of 
highly-educated readers who lack the ability to influence GOR 
policy.  Kozenko acknowledged that his elite readership 
generally has pre-formed political opinions which it expects 
to see reflected in Kommersant's articles. Panfilov asserted 
that allowing freedom in print and Internet media neatly fits 
with the Kremlin's political needs; people who gain their 
news from these two types of media never exceed five percent, 
which as it happens is below the seven percent barrier (under 
proposal to be reduced to five) that a party must overcome to 
achieve Duma representation.  He acknowledged that Internet 
access in Russia is approximately 25 percent (by some 
measures, 30 percent), but said that most people are not 
using it to learn any political information; if one looks at 
the number of hits on gazeta.ru, he said, it stays within the 
aforementioned boundary of five percent.  (Note: Medvedev 
recently floated a proposal to decrease the Duma barrier even 
further, to three percent; but the proposal is still in its 
fledgling stage, and would encounter huge resistance from the 
dominant United Russia party.  End note.) 
 
More journalists under threat 
----------------------------- 
 
¶8. (SBU) As pundits examine the prospects for media freedom, 
instances of individual journalists under threat continue. 
Kozenko told us that local papers vary widely in their 
coverage, with a number of papers freely criticizing local 
authorities and uncovering corruption; instances of violence 
happen more rarely, but are egregious enough to capture 
international attention when they do take place. 
Nonetheless, according to Panfilov's latest data through May 
31, so far in 2009 17 journalists have been beaten and/or 
physically attacked, one has been killed, 17 have been 
arrested, and 226 court cases have been opened against them. 
While print and Internet media remain by and large 
uncensored, press freedom advocates nervously keep an eye on 
GOR policy, noting the occasional suppression of an 
independent voice.  On June 2, Volgograd reporter Yelena 
Maglevannaya requested political asylum in Finland after an 
article she wrote for the opposition paper Svobodnoye Slovo 
("Free Word"), in which she quoted a Chechen man's 
allegations that he was tortured in a local prison, earned 
her unwelcome attention from both the GOR and from an extreme 
nationalist group who advocated her murder on their website. 
A court ordered her to publish a retraction, and her refusal 
to do so could land her in prison for up to two years. 
 
¶9. (SBU) In March, blogger Dmitry Solovyev, a member of the 
 
MOSCOW 00001505  003 OF 003 
 
 
opposition movement "Oborona," was charged with inciting 
hatred and "denigrating human dignity" after he questioned 
the basis for the constitutional structure of the government 
and state security.  Several days after the Solovyev case, a 
working group in the State Duma announced proposed amendments 
to the media law giving the GOR greater control over Internet 
media.  Similar endeavors in the past have not moved forward; 
however, the issue is likely to come to a head by January 1, 
2010, when the proposed amendments would come into force. 
 
No Money, No Problems? 
---------------------- 
 
¶10. (SBU) One area in which the crisis may ironically help 
press freedom is in affording journalists greater 
independence.  People commonly assume that the crisis will 
deal a devastating blow to the already tenuous budgets of 
independent media dependent on a dwindling customer base or 
donors' largess.  However, some of our contacts believe that 
independent media can flourish in an arid financial 
environment.  Rikhter told us June 2 that in his view, the 
financial difficulties brought on by the crisis might, in 
itself, be a catalyst for positive change.  Rikhter 
acknowledged that his "grand idea" needs to be proven. 
Nonetheless, he argued that the crisis will bring a "golden 
age" for Russian journalism by forcing newspapers and 
magazines that depend on government or business "sponsors" to 
fall back on their own means of survival, thus allowing 
greater freedom in their editorial policy.  Kozenkov agreed, 
adding that if sponsors become financially weak, they will 
stop "corrupting" journalists who mostly depend today on the 
likes and dislikes of the sponsors, rather than those of 
their readers/viewers/listeners. 
 
Comment 
------- 
 
¶11. (SBU) Public apathy and avoidance of political issues 
remain a fact of life in Russia, largely undisturbed by the 
financial crisis.  Our contacts uniformly tell us, however, 
that they are impressed by the level of flexibility, 
curiosity, and open-minded thinking among the young people 
with whom they interact.  Since vast numbers of young 
Russians take advantage of the modern freedom of travel to 
visit the U.S. and other Western countries every year, it 
would be impossible to completely control the information to 
which people have access.  The biggest problem with 
information flow in Russia appears to be the public's lack of 
interest in that information, meaning that a change in this 
trend commensurate with this exposure to foreign cultures 
appears the most likely way in which problems of "freedom of 
the press" will improve. 
BEYRLE