Two months ahead of the Duma and municipal elections, the regional media is covered by a PR wave. Since politics became interesting for major business, financial resources have begun being used along with administrative and ideological ones. The problem of the media in this context was discussed at the XV International Festival of Journalists in Sochi.
Journalists define dependence of editorial policy on sponsors and initiators (who are often regional and municipal authorities) as the main challenge for the regional media,. Regional and municipal authorities provide the media with financial support in all the constituent parts of Russia. Mechanisms for providing support depend on two key factors: the property category of the media and the direction of their editorial policy. Special pressure is put on regional editions by municipal authorities, as their policy is instrumental, diversified and conformist. Most short-sighted officials strive to limit media activity and simplify interrelations with journalists to the level of giving orders.
The participants of the forum concluded that the media is not the only source of information and it is loseing in the battle with the Internet. It can only be a compass in the sea of events and facts, with honest analysts having certain clear, if not objective, positions. The commercialisation of the media is turning newspapers, radio and television into branches of PR-agencies, threatening the press on this path.
Regional social and political press loses competitiveness in comparison with global, federal and regional entertainment media projects and gives the information space of the regions for their expansion. That is why the participants of the forum in Sochi decided to support President Medvedev’s proposal on privatization of the state regional media, but in such a way that their social functions won’t be lost in the process of reforming legal categories. To reform the Russian regional mass media, the transfer of media assets from the state to the private sector is not enough. State programmes are necessary, they can provide a balanced development for the economic independence of regional periodicals. The laws of many European countries presuppose giving financial support from state budgets to the local media.
Timur Utsoyev, Grozny. Exclusively to VK.
