#17 - JRL 7286
Moscow Times
August 12, 2003
Why the New Interest in Newspapers?
By Alexei Pankin
The All-Russia Center for the Study of Public Opinion, or VTsIOM for short, is set to become a joint-stock company. The sociologists who founded VTsIOM during the perestroika era and built it into Russia's most respected polling agency will likely be shown the door. Eksmo Press, one of Russia's leading publishing companies, is under investigation for tax evasion. Promsvyazbank has acquired a large stake in Trud, one of the best-selling daily newspapers. Mikhail Khodorkovsky's acquisition of another newspaper, Moskovskiye Novosti, is considered a done deal.
The sheer volume of major news stories coming out of the Russian media industry over the last week or so is enough to make your head spin. Personally, I am most interested in the fate of Moskovskiye Novosti, an excellent newspaper that was a pioneer of glasnost.
A few years ago, Yukos bought a controlling stake in one of the best regional television stations, Tomsk-based TV2, whose journalists were justifiably proud of their reputation for independent reporting. For many, the prospect of being swallowed by Khodorkovsky's business empire made their blood run cold. But Yukos turned out to be a well-behaved owner, investing much-needed money into the station. And no matter how the editorial staff tried to provoke their new owners by giving air time to people hostile to Yukos, no punitive measures were ever taken.
With this in mind, I am pleased for the outstanding journalists at Moskovskiye Novosti, who have never exactly lived in the lap of luxury. At least now they're likely to get a raise.
The impending purchase raises a different question, however: What does Khodorkovsky need with this newspaper? In the case of TV2, his interest was clear. TV2 dominates the media market in a city where Yukos has substantial business interests. But Moscow is not Tomsk, a newspaper is not a television station, and Moskovskiye Novosti is not exactly a cash cow. This is clearly not a business investment.
So what is it? A campaign tool? Not likely. Even with major investment from a new owner, Moskovskiye Novosti would probably not be able to diversify its readership to any great extent, and most of its current readers already vote for the Union of Right Forces and Yabloko. Does Khodorkovsky see the paper as a way to drum up popular support for his own future ambitions? Vladimir Gusinsky sponsored Obshchaya Gazeta for much the same reason, but got little bang for his buck. Is the aim to create a single forum for the Union of Right Forces and Yabloko, which refuse to join forces despite their broad ideological similarity?
More than anything, the purchase looks like an act of charity, the sort of thing that Yukos has won praise for in recent years.
In political terms, Promsvyazbank's investment in Trud makes more sense. The newspaper, which has a huge readership, is aimed at people who could just as well vote for the Communists, United Russia or any other centrist party. Combine Trud with the weekly Argumenty i Fakty, which Promstroibank acquired earlier, and you have yourself a very respectable media arm for a political campaign.
It's hard to say if this simultaneous interest in media outlets on the part of two major financial and industrial groups is a coincidence or evidence of a trend. The fashion for acquiring media assets peaked in the period from 1996 to 1998. The support of big business had been instrumental in Boris Yeltsin's victory in 1996. Once he was installed for a second term in the Kremlin, his major backers came to collect and used the press to make sure that they didn't come away empty-handed.
A colleague of mine joked that these days the oligarchs like to have "their own" media outlet for a slightly different reason: to demonstrate their loyalty to the Kremlin. Be that as it may, we are going to learn a lot in the near future about just what newspapers are good for.
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