Russian Paper Rails Against Subsidies for State Media

Text of report by Russian newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta on 26 June

[Report by Ivan Rodin: "The government continues to destroy the mass media market. Three billion roubles from the taxpayers' pocket into the pocket of a monopolist"]

Yesterday [25 June], the relevant State Duma committee finished preparing a draft federal budget for 2008-10 for the second reading. The document left intact the sum of R2.9bn earmarked for government publications: the Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper and the Rodina magazine. Apart from edicts and decrees, the newspaper prints many other things, including Nedelya, a free supplement disseminated among the most disciplined voters: pensioners. Nezavisimaya Gazeta experts are convinced: this is how not only all conceivable market laws but also constitutional rights of citizens are violated. The draft law is signed by Cabinet Chairman [Prime Minister] Mikhail Fradkov.

The deluge after the elections

The Duma refused to edit the government’s draft law. This has become a kind of tradition: One Russians agree with the executive branch already at the early stages of the budget process – as part of the so-called zero reading. So, when the budget goes to Okhotnyy Ryad [the seat of the Duma], only a few amendments are introduced into it. Now that three budget readings are conducted instead of four, the work of deputies is reduced to a minimum.

This situation is well illustrated by the operation of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, for example. The budget chapter “Culture, cinematography and mass media” has gone through the Duma to its final approval practically unchanged for many years now. This year, too, the committee, led by Valeriy Komissarov, did not work too hard when preparing the budget for the first reading.

The inertia of this committee does not seem surprising if you take a look at its opinion prepared for the first reading. It consists of slightly edited passages from a memorandum sent by the government. This committee never offered any amendments for the second reading. The point is that, as sources knowledgeable in budget issues in the State Duma apparatus explained to Nezavisimaya Gazeta, the appropriations for state and semi-state television, print mass media and news agencies are approved in advance by the presidential staff. The total sum allocated for the chapter covering electronic and print mass media is increased from R67.8bn this year to R82.7bn in 2008. In 2009, however, this sum declines to R70.2bn and further to R67.5bn in 2010. Yet, this tendency does not concern television too much. Next year, the state plans to allocate R24.3bn in assistance for this sector, and in the following two years the amount of funding drops only slightly to R23.2-23.4bn. In 2008, the same organizations will become lucky recipients of budget money. The VGTRK [All-Russia State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company] will take a larger share: R13.7bn. Channel One and NTV, too, will receive a good bonus, sharing R1.8bn in subsidies intended as payment for broadcasting to small Russian towns. The autonomous NKO [non-commercial organization] TV-Novosti, which produces a Russian- language version of the Euronews channel, will be granted a much larger sum of R3.6bn. Yet, we could not find in the budget documents a total sum of appropriations for promotion of the positive image of Russia abroad.

In 2008, R3.5bn is earmarked for print mass media, but the funding radically drops later to only R900m in 2009 and 2010. Curiously, R2.9bn of the R3.5bn in 2008 is intended for the editorial offices of Rossiyskaya Gazeta and Rodina. In 2009-10, the main state newspaper and the scientific-propaganda magazine intended to promote the national image abroad will receive merely R400m each.

Fears of deputies

The CPRF’s [Communist Party of the Russian Federation] Aleksandr Kravets, deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee for Information Policy, explains such ups and downs very simply: “The main elections will have been held already, so there will no longer be any need to distribute for free the supplement to Rossiyskaya Gazeta among old ladies.” Kravets told Nezavisimaya Gazeta that “free competition on the Russian market is already non-existent, and it is especially true for the media market, where there is no competition, freedom or independence”. Notably, he believes, all this “has been efficiently destroyed” not at all by political or administrative but economic “methods involving financial suffocation of a larger part of the market and through the appointment of one monopolist, the only one that is supposed to have a large circulation and strong influence, which is why all other mass media naturally cannot compete with it and are pushed out of the market”.

In the opinion of Kravets, this process has been taking place both in print and electronic mass media. In his words, it is specifically these actions by the state that kill competition and the market, which the authorities are so eager to create. The deputy even named all those who have organized all this: “The parent of these monopolists is the presidential staff, which gives good business conditions only to mass media owned by itself or by its financial-industrial groups, or by groups who pledged allegiance to it.” Aleksandr Kravets noted that this is just what the budget for 2008-10 demonstrates. The deputy admitted that his committee did not really try to offer any amendments for the second reading: “Our committee, just as all others, is dominated by One Russia, which does what it is told to do.” As for the corresponding budget chapter, Kravets did not conceal that all the figures specified in it were determined by the Kremlin, which is why “the deputies are afraid even to look at them”.

Independent deputy Vladimir Ryzhkov described as “outrageous” the practice of subsidizing official mass media from the budget: it has “a destructive nature because private independent mass media cannot compete with those whose subscription, for example, is subsidized from the budget”. He pointed out that it is especially evident at a regional level. Besides, the deputy noted, “by the number of print and electronic mass media established by government institutions, Russia is the world’s leader”.

The deputy recalled: the issue of the state having to leave the media market has been raised for a long time and produced no results: “It is not in the interests of the ruling elites, which control the information space and which are clinging to power.” Ryzhkov is confident that the practice of budget subsidies violates the rights of citizens: “People of various political convictions pay taxes, but in this situation those who vote for Communists or, say, Other Russia or other parties pay for mass media that back One Russia and the president.” In the opinion of the Duma deputy, it is unfair and unconstitutional: “The state is killing freedom of speech even though the constitution specifically forbids it.” Ryzhkov advised the association of private publishers to go to court and demand that this part of the budget be recognized as unconstitutional because it violates the freedom of competition and mass information.

(c) 2007 BBC Monitoring Former Soviet Union. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.