#5 - JRL 2006-131 - JRL Home
Moscow Times
June 6, 2006
Editorial
Doing the Responsible Thing

The World Association of Newspapers seems to have a Russia problem.

As WAN president Gavin O'Reilly told President Vladimir Putin during Monday's opening ceremonies in the Kremlin, many of the group's members argued "right up to the last minute" that holding the annual congress in Moscow would be seen as an endorsement of the sorry state of press freedom in Russia.

They were proved right.

With the opening ceremonies still going on, State Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov issued a statement saying that the congress was "recognition by the world's professional newspaper community of the democratic gains of recent decades in which the Russian press has played an active part."

In a clumsily edited news segment Sunday night, city government-owned TV Center showed Mayor Yury Luzhkov mouthing a platitude about the importance of an independent press to another WAN audience, then cut to raucous applause from what seemed to be a different time of the night.

No mention was made of the WAN round table on press freedom earlier in the day, during which a presenter from state-owned Rossia television had lectured on Russians' genetic disinclination to democracy.

O'Reilly, with Putin at his side, walked a careful line on Monday. He repeatedly flattered Russia as "a great and proud superpower," while "respectfully" posing tough questions that called into doubt Putin's professed commitment to press freedom.

Kommersant cited sources close to the Kremlin and the conference organizers as saying O'Reilly's speech had originally included the statement that Russia did not belong in the Group of Eight.

But after the Kremlin threatened to cancel Putin's speech, all mention of the G8 vanished, according to the newspaper, which is one of three general partners of the WAN conference.

WAN organizers say there was no Kremlin interference, and indeed any suggestion of self-censorship by the global defender of press freedom is baffling. What's not is that the Kremlin's playing tough.

Russia has used its G8 presidency to assert its role as "a great and proud superpower" at every turn. Increasingly confident in its energy wealth, it has successfully shrugged off previous suggestions -- coming most vocally from members of the U.S. Congress -- that it doesn't deserve a place at the table because of curbs on democratic freedoms.

U.S. President George W. Bush may decide to tweak Putin with a visit to Ukraine just before the July summit, but there is no hint he won't come. And no diplomatic slight will reduce the post-summit crowing that Russia has secured its place in the world's most exclusive club.

Unsurprisingly, Putin remained calm and confident through O'Reilly's speech.

"It was pleasant for me to hear," Putin told the audience afterward, "that in spite of the fact that someone tried to dissuade and frighten you, the press didn't let itself be frightened; it did the responsible thing and came to Moscow."

The world seems to be growing more responsible all the time.