NYT, pg1: It Isn’t Magic: Putin Opponents Are Made to Vanish From TV

[DeepModem Mom]

Kremlin Rules
It Isn’t Magic: Putin Opponents Are Made to Vanish From TV
By CLIFFORD J. LEVY
Published: June 3, 2008

MOSCOW — On a talk show last fall, a prominent political analyst named Mikhail G. Delyagin had some tart words about Vladimir V. Putin. When the program was later televised, Mr. Delyagin was not. Not only were his remarks cut — he was also digitally erased from the show, like a disgraced comrade airbrushed from an old Soviet photo. (The technicians may have worked a bit hastily, leaving his disembodied legs in one shot.) Mr. Delyagin, it turned out, has for some time resided on the so-called stop list, a roster of political opponents and other critics of the government who have been barred from TV news and political talk shows by the Kremlin.

The stop list is, as Mr. Delyagin put it, “an excellent way to stifle dissent.” It is also a striking indication of how Mr. Putin has increasingly relied on the Kremlin-controlled TV networks to consolidate power, especially in recent elections....

Onetime Putin allies like Mikhail M. Kasyanov, his former prime minister, and Andrei N. Illarionov, his former chief economic adviser, disappeared from view. Garry K. Kasparov, the former chess champion and leader of the Other Russia opposition coalition, was banned, as were members of liberal parties. Even the Communist Party, the only remaining opposition party in Parliament, has said that its leaders are kept off TV.

And it is not just politicians. Televizor, a rock group whose name means TV set, had its booking on a St. Petersburg station canceled in April, after its members took part in an Other Russia demonstration. When some actors cracked a few mild jokes about Mr. Putin and Mr. Medvedev at Russia’s equivalent of the Academy Awards in March, they were expunged from the telecast. Indeed, political humor in general has been exiled from TV.

Senior government officials deny the existence of a stop list, saying that people hostile to the Kremlin do not appear on TV simply because their views are not newsworthy. In interviews, journalists said that they did not believe the Kremlin kept an official master stop list, but that the networks kept their own, and that they all operated under an informal stop list — an understanding of the Kremlin’s likes and dislikes....

***

All the major national and regional networks are now owned by the government or its allies. And since the presidential election in March, neither Mr. Putin nor Mr. Medvedev has indicated any interest in loosening the reins....

***

While the Kremlin has focused on TV because it has by far the largest audience, many radio stations and newspapers also abide by the stop list, either ignoring or belittling the opposition....

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/03/world/europe/03russia.html?ref=todayspaper&pagewanted=all

[shraby]

1. Not much different from the United States, huh?

I remember Kerry didn't get much air time at all.

[tom_paine]

2. Amerika, Russian, and China are now Sister Nations with the same form of government

n/t

[htuttle]

4. You mean Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia, right?

[tom_paine]

5. Sure do. Which one are we at war with, again? I forget and the Two Minute Hate is coming on Cable.

"Getcha programs here! Can't tell the players without a scorecard!"

[blm]

3. US news networks gave swifts 4 months of airtime while they refused to broadcast Kerry's counter

of the swifts in his speech to the Firefighters Convention on Aug19,2004, where he also challenged Bush to stop hiding behind the swifts and publicly debate their services during that time.


One would think the news networks would find big news in an event like that, especially at a post 9-11 Firefighters Convention.

But their job in 2003-4 was to protect the Bush presidency....period. They needed the favorable rulings on media ownership they expected from a second Bush term.

[tom_paine]

6. I remember. It was a totalitarian episode worthy of Soviet Russia, let alone

Putin's BushPutinist Russia.

[blm]

7. Truly. If we didn't go through a category 5 hurricane in 2005, I think they'd still be going

full bore along with the fascism.