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Politicization and Self-Censorship in the Russian Media

Owners Attracted by Power of Media

The 1996 presidential campaign marked a turning point for the Moscow-based media. It is worth recalling how hopeless Yeltsin's candidacy appeared just six months before the presidential election. In the December 1995 parliamentary elections, the pro-government movement Our Home Is Russia gained just 10 percent of the vote, while the Communist Party gained more than 22 percent. Even Vladimir Zhirinovsky's Liberal Democratic Party of Russia outpolled the pro-government movement. Wage and pension arrears continued to mount. The unpopular Chechen war dragged on with no end in sight. In January 1996, Russian forces disastrously mishandled a hostage crisis in Dagestan; indiscriminate bombing killed many hostages, while the Chechen terrorists were allowed to escape. Opinion polls showed Yeltsin's approval rating in the single digits, and many Russian journalists ridiculed his prospects for re-election. Speculation was rife that the president would cancel the election rather than lose a fair contest. Yegor Gaidar, a longtime Yeltsin loyalist, begged the president not to run for re-election, saying his candidacy would "virtually guarantee" victory for Communist candidate Gennadii Zyuganov.(4)

Yeltsin recognized that he would need media support in order to overcome these obstacles. He set the tone for the campaign by firing the chairman of state-run Russian Television the same day he declared his candidacy in Yekaterinburg.(5) The Kremlin then set about securing the loyalty of privately owned media. This was not a difficult task, as journalists were understandably alarmed by the strong showing of the Communist Party in the parliamentary election.

In the most remarkable turnaround of the campaign, Igor Malashenko, the president of the influential private network NTV, joined a team of Yeltsin strategists in March. NTV earned a reputation for bold coverage during the Chechen war and was valued for its credibility with viewers. Before the campaign, NTV wore its opposition to the authorities as a badge of honor.(6) As late as mid-February 1996, commentators slammed the presidential administration on the air for allegedly denying an NTV correspondent access to a Kremlin press conference. At that time, Malashenko predicted that the authorities would not dare to embark on a "suicidal" course of threatening the media during the presidential campaign.(7)

Yet less than a month later, Malashenko began working in close contact with Yeltsin's team. He explained that if the private media provided "unbiased, professional, and objective" campaign coverage, Zyuganov would win the election, and journalists would lose their freedom permanently. Better to become a temporary "instrument of propaganda" in the hands of the Kremlin, Malashenko argued.(8)

The rapid and sweeping change in the media's coverage of Yeltsin during the campaign was striking. Most criticism of the president disappeared from view. Yeltsin's promises to end the Chechen war and pay wage and pension arrears were treated unskeptically. Meanwhile, news reporting kept up an incessant anti-communist drumbeat. Coverage of Zyuganov often involved footage of outrageous statements by radical communist Viktor Anpilov, a marginal figure in Zyuganov's campaign. Aside from a few opposition newspapers with relatively small circulations, the media presented Yeltsin and Zyuganov to readers and viewers only as the Kremlin wanted them to be seen.(9) The Russian Public Television network even refused to air the final campaign advertisement produced by the Zyuganov campaign.(10)

Straightforward pro-Yeltsin, anti-communist news coverage was merely one aspect of the self-censorship prevalent during the 1996 campaign. At all stages of the campaign, selective reporting benefited the president.

Between February and June, the media framed the campaign as a two-way contest between Yeltsin and Zyuganov, marginalizing all other aspirants. This helped Kremlin strategists achieve their main objective: getting voters to view Yeltsin as the only barrier to a Communist return to power, rather than as an unpopular incumbent seeking re-election on his record.(11) During these months, all other candidates were portrayed as reckless or irresponsible, willing to risk catastrophe for Russia in order to satisfy their own ambitions. This type of coverage was applied against Yabloko leader Grigorii Yavlinskii in particular, even though his approval rating in January had been as high as Yeltsin's, and he too would probably have defeated Zyuganov in a two-way race. Yavlinskii attempted to campaign as the "democratic opposition" to Yeltsin, but journalists tended to filter out that message.

In early June, during the final two weeks before the first round of the election, the media provided massive favorable exposure to Aleksandr Lebed. Interviewers asked him friendly questions, and his campaign appearances received plenty of attention in newscasts and print media.(12) Since Lebed had already struck a deal with the Yeltsin campaign to back the president after the first round, such coverage worked indirectly for Yeltsin. For good measure, interviews with Lebed often included anti-communist material.(13)

In between the first round of the election and the runoff two and a half weeks later, the media concentrated efforts on getting out the vote. Commercials, entertainment programs, and newspaper articles drove home the message, "Vote or you will lose." Commentators and pollsters repeatedly warned that the Communist would return to power if turnout fell below 60 percent. Yeltsin's heart problems and disappearance during the last week of the campaign were almost entirely ignored in news reports, although journalists in Moscow were aware of the sudden decline in the president's health.(14)

Yeltsin's decisive victory in July -- with 53.8 percent of the vote to 40.3 percent for Zyuganov -- drove home to potential owners that the media were a powerful weapon for influencing public opinion, if harnessed effectively. It also demonstrated that Russian journalists could be mobilized to propagate a particular political viewpoint, and it is now an axiom that Yeltsin would not have won without the media behind him. While in the West the influence of media coverage on electoral behavior remains debatable, as it is not clear to what extent voters are influenced by how the media frames campaign issues and to what extent media messages about candidates merely reinforce beliefs already held by voters, the media's contribution to the Yeltsin victory is not considered an arguable point in Russia.(15)

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special reports 1997

A paper by Laura Belin, a specialist on Russian affairs at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. It was presented at the national conference of the American Association for the Advance- ment of Slavic Studies, Seattle, Washington, November 1997. The author can be contacted via email at laurabelin@mailexcite.com:

	Introduction
	Owners Attracted by Power of Media
	Media Squeezed by Market Realities
	How Financial Dependence Slants News Coverage
	The Impact of Media Coverage
	Prospects for Development
	Regional Media Even Less Free
	Conclusion
	Endnotes
	Appendix 1: Russian Media Empires
	Appendix 2: Changes in Editorial Policy and Ownership at 'Izvestiya'