|
|
| New York Times January
2, 2006 By SOPHIA KISHKOVSKY
MOSCOW, Jan. 1 - Recent turmoil in the news department of REN-TV, Russia's last nationwide television network with independent news programming, has caused concern among media analysts and free-speech advocates in the country. Last July, RTL Group, the broadcasting arm of the Bertelsmann Group, agreed to buy a 30 percent stake in REN-TV from Irena Lesnevskaya, who founded and ran the channel with her son, Dmitry Lesnevsky. Some journalists are criticizing RTL for not intervening in what they say are moves to restrict the station's coverage. REN-TV has been known for critical news reporting that offered an alternative to state channels' uniformly positive coverage of President Vladimir V. Putin, media analysts said. Its signal reaches more than 113 million people, although its audience share hovers around 5 percent. "REN-TV was the last channel that had real news, people who tried to speak the truth," Aleksei Simonov, the president of the Glasnost Defense Foundation, a press freedom group, told the Ekho Moskvy radio station in October. Olga Romanova, the host of a news analysis program called "24," said that on Nov. 24, private security guards blocked her from entering the studio at the network's Moscow headquarters. She said the move was on the orders of Alexander Ordzhonikidze, a former gas industry and satellite television executive who was appointed by the new shareholders as chief executive of REN-TV Media Holding, parent company of the television channel. Mr. Ordzhonikidze told the Russian media that he was trying out new anchors for the program and that security in the studios was tight. Ms. Romanova said that in the weeks leading up to her departure as anchor, she protested what she said were Mr. Ordzhonikidze's decisions to keep several reports off the air - pressure that began after she broadcast a report about a pro-fascist march in Moscow on Nov. 4. The reports included one about elections in Kazakhstan and another about prosecutors dropping charges against Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov's son, who was accused of killing a pedestrian with his car, Ms. Romanova said. In another example of what she called censorship, Ms. Romanova said, a report about a football team of homeless men from St. Petersburg traveling to Ireland to defend its title in the world homeless soccer championship was withdrawn by the new management. "It was removed with the words, 'There are no homeless people in St. Petersburg. St. Petersburg is rich, it is the city of the president,' " she said. Mr. Ordzhonikidze told the Interfax news agency, "I didn't give anyone any orders to remove any reports." Ralph Siebenaler, an RTL executive who has helped develop the group's stations in Central and Eastern Europe and was appointed chief executive of REN-TV, did not intervene, Ms. Romanova said. Mr. Siebenaler said in an e-mail message: "When you have a change of management in a company, it happens unfortunately that parts of the former management team do not get along with the new team." He added, "As news does not lie in my sphere of responsibilities in the channel, I do not want to openly comment about the acts and deeds of the people involved." RTL's investment in REN-TV is in part indicative of Russia's booming television advertising market. Renaissance Capital, a Moscow investment bank, reported this year that the television advertising market was expected to have grow by 36.5 percent, to $2 billion in 2005. Andrew Buckhurst, a senior vice president at RTL Group's headquarters in Luxembourg, said in an e-mail response to questions, "We are not aware of any political interference in the policies or decisions of the station. If we were, we would obviously be concerned." Mr. Buckhurst added, "While we are a minority shareholder with just 30 percent, we are clearly the shareholder with experience in the TV world, but it should be noted that we cannot be held responsible for ensuring or guaranteeing press freedom from this minority position." He continued: "All three shareholders share the same view that REN must continue with its editorial line, offering a full service to its audience, including news." RTL shares ownership of the station with a Russian steel maker and an oil company, whose chief executives both campaigned for President Putin in the 2004 presidential race. Unified Energy System, the electricity monopoly, sold its 70 percent stake in REN-TV in July to a subsidiary of Severstal, one of Russia's biggest steel makers, for $100 million. Severstal is led by the 40-year-old billionaire Aleksei Mordashov. Mr. Mordashov in turn sold 35 percent of REN-TV to Surgutneftegaz, a large Russian oil company headed by Vladimir Bogdanov, a reclusive Siberian billionaire. Some journalists and analysts say that Unified Energy System sold a part of its stake in REN-TV under Kremlin pressure. They also speculate that Severstal bought it at the Kremlin's request to clear the airwaves of critical coverage of President Putin and the government before the parliamentary and presidential elections in 2007 and 2008. Anatoly Chubais, the chairman of Unified Energy System and a liberal politician, has said that the company was divesting noncore assets. Ms. Romanova said she thought that executives were acting out of a desire to please the authorities, not on direct orders from the Kremlin. "For two days I sat and was silent, and then I quit," she said. Several news editors and staff members followed, she said, and several liberal newspapers, Web publications and the Ekho Moskvy radio station declared that independent television news was dead. |
|
|