Russian TV veers back to familiar ground
http://dervishcom.blogspot.com/2012/01/russian-tv-veers-back-to-familiar.html
moscow — As thousands of protesters pushed toward Bolotnaya Square, crews from mainstream Russian television fanned out. Satellite trucks were ranged curbside, their engines running.
For six days after the Duma elections last month, TV ignored the street protests that were starting to shake the nation. Now the reporters and cameramen were ready. But still, not a peep.
Finally, at 3 p.m. on Dec. 10, say those who know, the word came down: You can put this on the air.
The news reports that followed were neutral and factual, and it seemed that TV, a central instrument of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s hold on power, was at last giving way under the strain. But the dalliance with straight reporting was short-lived. In January, the leash was pulled up tight again.
Putin has an election to win — he’s running for president, and the vote is in March — and after weeks of ambivalence and uncertainty, the state-controlled TV has returned to its old and familiar ways.
In December, said Anna Kachkayeva, a media studies professor at Moscow State University, “everyone got this feeling, ‘Okay, we’ve got what we wanted.’ Well, no. Not at all.”
The men who run television got their start in Soviet TV in the late 1980s, and they understood, she said, that they had “to open the pipe” to some extent or protesters — and their own journalist employees — would be dangerously provoked.
There was a fever in the body politic, said Roman Badanin, the online editor-in-chief for Forbes here, and the coverage was like an aspirin.
But Putin expects to be elected, and since mid-January there’s been little aspirin. The main news programs no longer ignore the opposition, as they did for a decade, but instead hammer away at it. One report outlined the vacations that protest organizers took abroad over Christmas. A team from NTV, owned by the giant state-owned Gazprom company, ambushed civil society leaders as they emerged from a meeting with the new U.S. ambassador, Michael McFaul. The station accused them of going to pick up the money with which the United States is supposedly financing the protests.
McFaul, just days into his new job, has turned into a favorite target. On Tuesday evening, the First Channel news featured a long report on the demagogic Vladimir Zhirinovsky criticizing legislators who met with McFaul. Behind the anchors was a graphic showing a long American flag waving ominously.
With another big demonstration planned for Feb. 4, the protesters haven’t been totally shut out. One organizer, Vladimir Ryzhkov, appeared on a late-night talk show, and because that was so rare it got a huge 25 percent ratings share in Moscow. But viewers watched while Sergei Kurginyan, a Kremlin apologist, shouted at Ryzhkov that he was guilty of “national betrayal” for meeting with McFaul. “You’re an enemy and a traitor,” he said.
Opening for Web television
In hindsight, December looks like a tactical retreat. Without an obvious opposition leader, Kachkayeva said, there was no recognizable narrative structure to this story. Editors and executives weren’t sure what to do.
For six days after the Duma elections last month, TV ignored the street protests that were starting to shake the nation. Now the reporters and cameramen were ready. But still, not a peep.
Finally, at 3 p.m. on Dec. 10, say those who know, the word came down: You can put this on the air.
The news reports that followed were neutral and factual, and it seemed that TV, a central instrument of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s hold on power, was at last giving way under the strain. But the dalliance with straight reporting was short-lived. In January, the leash was pulled up tight again.
Putin has an election to win — he’s running for president, and the vote is in March — and after weeks of ambivalence and uncertainty, the state-controlled TV has returned to its old and familiar ways.
In December, said Anna Kachkayeva, a media studies professor at Moscow State University, “everyone got this feeling, ‘Okay, we’ve got what we wanted.’ Well, no. Not at all.”
The men who run television got their start in Soviet TV in the late 1980s, and they understood, she said, that they had “to open the pipe” to some extent or protesters — and their own journalist employees — would be dangerously provoked.
There was a fever in the body politic, said Roman Badanin, the online editor-in-chief for Forbes here, and the coverage was like an aspirin.
But Putin expects to be elected, and since mid-January there’s been little aspirin. The main news programs no longer ignore the opposition, as they did for a decade, but instead hammer away at it. One report outlined the vacations that protest organizers took abroad over Christmas. A team from NTV, owned by the giant state-owned Gazprom company, ambushed civil society leaders as they emerged from a meeting with the new U.S. ambassador, Michael McFaul. The station accused them of going to pick up the money with which the United States is supposedly financing the protests.
McFaul, just days into his new job, has turned into a favorite target. On Tuesday evening, the First Channel news featured a long report on the demagogic Vladimir Zhirinovsky criticizing legislators who met with McFaul. Behind the anchors was a graphic showing a long American flag waving ominously.
With another big demonstration planned for Feb. 4, the protesters haven’t been totally shut out. One organizer, Vladimir Ryzhkov, appeared on a late-night talk show, and because that was so rare it got a huge 25 percent ratings share in Moscow. But viewers watched while Sergei Kurginyan, a Kremlin apologist, shouted at Ryzhkov that he was guilty of “national betrayal” for meeting with McFaul. “You’re an enemy and a traitor,” he said.
Opening for Web television
In hindsight, December looks like a tactical retreat. Without an obvious opposition leader, Kachkayeva said, there was no recognizable narrative structure to this story. Editors and executives weren’t sure what to do.
