#2
BBC Monitoring Service
October 30, 2002
Analysis: Russian media reflect on coverage of hostage crisis

Although some Russian media outlets broke the law in their live coverage of the recent hostage crisis at a Moscow theatre, there should be no rush to make the media scapegoats for what happened, said one of President Putin's aides.

Presidential aide Sergey Yastrzhembskiy, speaking in a discussion programme on NTV Mir on 29 October, said: "We have to calmly analyse the work done by the media during this crisis. There are examples of brilliant professional work, and there are examples when laws were broken, the state federal laws, for example the law on the fight against terrorism, when live broadcasts were made of operations by special forces. This is directly prohibited by law. There were also examples of outstanding conduct by certain journalists who helped the operational staff establish contact with the terrorists."

Summing up the discussion on media coverage of the hostage-taking and the subsequent rescue operation, the presenter of the NTV Mir discussion programme concluded: "At the moment in Russia everything is decided for the media by the authorities, who, it would seem, are not against journalists adopting new forms of self-regulation."

Running news

The main Russian TV channels went into running news sequences on the night of 23-24 October in response to the seizure by 30 Chechen rebels of some 800 hostages at a theatre in Moscow. Russian Public TV (ORT), state-owned Russia TV, commercial NTV and TVS, Centre TV and Ren TV stayed on the air in Moscow all night. Normally, the channels close down around 2200-2300 gmt and reopen at 0200 gmt or 0300 gmt. Frequent news updates were broadcast all night on NTV, TVS and Centre TV; Russia TV and ORT had extra bulletins in the late hours of 23 October and carried frequent updates after 0000 gmt 24 October.

NTV dropped its lucrative Champions League soccer coverage late on 23 October on Russian terrestrial frequencies in response to the crisis.

Kultura TV, M1 TV, and STS followed their normal entertainment schedules, and closed down and reopened according to their normal schedules. Ekho Moskvy, Mayak and Radio Russia carried news as usual overnight.

Sanctions against radio station, TV channel

The Russian newspaper Vremya Novostey on 29 October said practically all of Russia's news media had "received with understanding in these recent days the warning that all incautious words could play into the hands of the terrorists and voluntarily agreed to `measure out' information". However, there had been "problems," the paper added, recalling that sanctions had been applied by the Ministry of Press and Information against Ekho Moskvy radio for "giving a Chechen terrorist almost half an hour to voice his demands on the air". The ministry also censured the Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper for a breach of ethics in publishing on its front page a photograph of the dead body of a female hostage.

"But the Ministry of Press and Information's most decisive step at the time of the tragedy was the suspension of the broadcasting of Channel 3, better known as the Moskoviya channel," Vremya Novostey said. The reasons for this including the channel broadcasting a recording from Al-Jazeera Television containing an appeal by the hostage-takers, discussion about possible exit routes and "backup airfields" the terrorists might use, and airing of remarks by the channel's reporters and talk show participants who said: "For Muscovites all people from the Caucasus look alike."

According to Vremya Novostey, those who took part in the counterterrorist operation were said to be "incensed" at the behaviour of NTV television, which they accused of "virtually aiding and abetting" the terrorists by, for instance, showing the movements of special units around the theatre.

Need for a media code

The performance of the Russian media in covering the hostage drama raised the question of "the need to create a code of rules to regulate the behaviour of journalists in crises," the president of the National Association of Russia TV and Radio Broadcasters, Eduard Sagalayev, told ITAR-TASS on 28 October. "It is not a question of censorship or restrictions, but of the media being guided by the principle to do no harm... Journalists need to remember that the media is a tool that can be used by terrorists in achieving their ends," Sagalayev said.

The president of the Academy of Russian Television, Vladimir Pozner, noted that "the attempts by some TV channels to pad out their coverage with commentaries by dubious experts hampered the special services in the efforts to free the hostages". In an interview with Russian news agency ITAR-TASS, Pozner said that "bringing unqualified people into the studio to make completely irresponsible remarks was a great mistake on the part of some TV and radio stations". He also called on journalists not to forget that "the Russian media do not have the moral or legal right to act as a mouthpiece for the bandits".

As for the Western media, it had shown double standards in its handling of the hostage crisis, according to presidential aide Sergey Yastrzhembskiy. The Western press had called the bandits "dissidents and rebels", but Americans would have been indignant if the Russian press had referred to the people who had targeted planes at the World Trade Centre in New York as "dissidents". It was incorrect to apply the term "rebels" to events in Russia and the term "terrorists" to events in the West, Yastrzhembskiy said, in remarks reported by ITAR-TASS.