Russian Media



April 21, 2001



BOB GARFIELD: The Russian media are doing some soul-searching this week. In a news story with characters, subplots and subterfuge worthy of Tolstoi, Russia's only independent television network, NTV, was taken over by "the gas company." After defaulting on a massive Vladimir Gusinsky seems to have lost control of his media-most empire. It is in the hands of the receivers, the receivers in this case being the state-run Gazprom [sp?]. Journalists at the station staged a sit-in for 11 days to protest the new owner. By the time Gazprom's private security forces entered the offices, many of the journalists had resigned and set up shop at a cable station also principally owned by Gusinsky. Michael Wines is in the New York Times Bureau in Moscow, and he joins us on the line. Welcome to On the Media, Michael.

MICHAEL WINES: My pleasure.

BOB GARFIELD: Is there any chance that Gazprom will come in and actually be an honest broker here and, and let NTV be a western-style broadcast station that asks tough questions of political leaders?

MICHAEL WINES: Well, Gazprom has been running NTV for the last, what, 4 days, and I think the consensus is that so far they've been fairly objective. You know they haven't gone out and, and beaten the world with stories critical of the Kremlin but neither have they kowtowed to it. There's an American who's running the, the, the station now named Boris Jordan who has made a public pledge that this station will be immune from political or shareholder influence, and so far that seems to be true. I think the big question is what happens when Mr. Jordan leaves, as he must, because I mean let's face it, Gazprom is a company that is 38.4 percent owned by the Kremlin. Its links to the Russian government are deep and inextricable. It's almost a part of the state.

BOB GARFIELD: It's possible that Mr. Gusinsky is both a democrat fighting for an independent voice and a financial fraud as well isn't it?

MICHAEL WINES:Mr. Gusinsky is a very charismatic and bright leader. He has run an excellent media operation on, on largely western standards. It's by far the best I think among the major media in Russia, but in the last 4 or 5 years he too has used it to, to try to influence the state, to try to advance his business interests, so you know he's not exactly a complete white knight in this.

BOB GARFIELD:Is it too early to tell how the Russian people are viewing this whole situation? Who do you suppose in the public's eye has the moral authority at this point?

MICHAEL WINES: There have been some polls on this and some, and some experts who have looked at it. Roughly 9 out of 10 Russians really don't care about this or they think Mr. Gusinsky who is a very wealthy man who got rich during the 1990s when the majority of Russians were, were either losing their jobs or starving, they think that, that he deserves whatever he gets. You have another, another 10 percent of Russians, mostly the, the intellectual elite, the pro-western liberals, who think this is an, an extremely important issue, and there have been some very large and vocal demonstrations in support of NTV and, and Mr. Gusinky. But I think once you get outside of Moscow you really don't find much support.

BOB GARFIELD: So if democracy itself is at stake in this battle, the public doesn't seem much to notice or care.

MICHAEL WINES:Well, first you have to ask the question whether democracy is at stake. There's a tendency I think to try to look at this situation through an American mirror, because we've been a democracy for 200 years and say well they ought to be doing this. But you have to look at it through Russian eyes. This is a place that is really still toying with the idea of what it ought to be. They've seen democracy on television or they've read about it in magazines and they, they know that they want a certain amount of freedom, but there's a deep suspicion of the uncertainty that comes with the sorts of freedoms that Americans are used to.

BOB GARFIELD: How about a five part series on NTV: Corruption in the Kremlin? We expect to see that any time soon?

MICHAEL WINES:You know the thing about this country is you can slam Gusinsky and you can slam Gazprom and you can be right on both, but in this country right now everybody's guilty. You have to give Mr. Gusinsky credit for one thing -- this guy built an entire empire which for better or worse, you know, has had a real impact on this country and, and has introduced the idea of western-style media to it. So you know, he'll leave a legacy no matter what happens.

BOB GARFIELD: And he'll get to enjoy that idea from somewhere in Spain.

MICHAEL WINES: Well it sure looks like that for the moment.

BOB GARFIELD: All right. Michael Wines, thanks very much for joining us.

MICHAEL WINES: Yeah. My pleasure.

BOB GARFIELD: Michael Wines is in the Moscow Bureau of the New York Times.