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Censorship The Media

Russian Journalists Quit Over Censorship 162

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the rebels-with-a-cause dept.
A state-controlled broadcast center in Russia has just seen the result of censorship restrictions imposed by the Kremlin. In a rare show of protest a group of journalists all resigned stating that they could no longer work under the harsh restrictions imposed by the state. "Artyom Khan, one of the reporters who resigned, said restrictions were introduced when new management was imported last month from Channel One, the state television station that documents Mr Putin's every move."
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Russian Journalists Quit Over Censorship More

Russian Journalists Quit Over Censorship

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  • Well, (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It's a nice gesture, but the poor guy has a long road ahead of him.
    • In Soviet Russia, nice gesture=waaaaaaay better than a syringe full of polonium.
    • The "International Herald Tribune" has just published a report [iht.com] summarizing the state of independent journalism in Russia. The Kremlin is trying to seize the offices of the Russian Union of Journalists, which is the largest organization of independent journalists. Meanwhile, the Russian government uses its satellites to transmit "Russia Today", a government-funded pro-Kremlin program, to audiences in foreign countries like the USA and Germany. Also, Vladimir Putin has ordered the Russian News Service (RNS) t

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by snarkh ( 118018 )

      Yes, quite possibly a long road towards the north-eastern parts of Russia.

  • Next up, Channel One Exposes Number Two... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by xxxJonBoyxxx ( 565205 ) on Monday May 21, 2007 @02:58PM (#19211707)

    Channel One, the state television station that documents Mr Putin's every move...


    Czar Putin, you sure that's a good idea?

    "Next up, Channel One Exposes Number Two..."
    • That's Mr Number Two to you Mister.
    • Putin: "KHAN!! KHAN!!! KHAnNnNnN !...!!....!!!..."
    • The channel doesn't actually document his every move - it's more it documents every move he wants the public to see. I spent several years in Russia (2001 - 2003), and had the opportunity to see the government's censorship firsthand. It was very efficient and almost invisible. If someone hadn't told me about it - I probably wouldn't have noticed.

      You see, the papers and stations are given free rein on a variety of subjects - ranging from tracking Russian movie stars to issues on the Ukraine. Only in cer

  • To Putin (Score:3, Funny)

    by roman_mir ( 125474 ) on Monday May 21, 2007 @02:59PM (#19211715) Homepage Journal
    I've done far worse than kill you. I've hurt you. And I wish to go on hurting you. I shall leave you as you left me, as you left her: marooned for all eternity in the center of a dead planet, buried alive. Buried alive.

  • In Soviet Russia ... (Score:5, Funny)

    by PPH ( 736903 ) on Monday May 21, 2007 @03:00PM (#19211719)
    ... Kremlin mods YOU down!

  • And you thought Britain was bad for cameras! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Timesprout ( 579035 ) on Monday May 21, 2007 @03:01PM (#19211733)
    Whats a few surveillance cameras when poor Putin has a camera crew following him everywhere!!

  • right.. (Score:4, Funny)

    by mastershake_phd ( 1050150 ) on Monday May 21, 2007 @03:01PM (#19211735) Homepage
    the state television station that documents Mr Putin's every move.
     
    If you were trying to run an oppressive state, why would you want your every move documented?

    • Re:right.. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Timesprout ( 579035 ) on Monday May 21, 2007 @03:05PM (#19211779)
      Because he is trying to build up a personality cult. It would appear Mr Putin has deigns on power greater than the Russian Presidency.

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by MadJo ( 674225 )
        Wait, what? He wants to be Russia's Next Top Model?
        • You laugh, but celebrity status is a great way to guarantee votes. Having your name known for pretty much anything (as long as it doesn't involve killing people or raping babies) is far better than languishing in obscurity. Plenty of historical precedent for this - Americans need look no further than Reagan/Ventura/Schwarzenegger... did you know even Clint Eastwood [wikipedia.org] has got in on this gig? Not just an American thing either - other examples off the top of my head include Peter Garrett (Australia) and Robert K

    • If you were trying to run an oppressive state, why would you want your every move documented?
      I'm sure this is more in the vein of "Our fearless leader visits a hospital and shakes hands with a cancer patient" or "Our fearless leader opens a new armaments factory sending missiles to our great ally, Iran" and other such pleasantries.

  • Censorship (Score:2, Funny)

    by Mockylock ( 1087585 )
    Too bad they don't have a writer's guild. They could regulate the censored censorship to regulate the censorship of Putin's Censorship.

    OR they could just get a job at the Washington Post for a few weeks before it falls apart.

  • Cold War, take... Two? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by u-bend ( 1095729 ) on Monday May 21, 2007 @03:03PM (#19211751) Homepage Journal
    You know, there are probably a lot of frustrated Washington bureaucrats and military types that would love to see a re-emergence of a Soviet Russian state--we'd be fighting real commies again, and not elusive and often invisible terrorists. And the wiretapping infrastructure is there to catch the red sympathizers at home now! Ah, Russia, how your people are always out of one pan and into another fire.
    • Well, I vote that we'll henceforth refer to this as the Nippy War!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Bearpaw ( 13080 )
      Actually, I get the impression that at least some in Washington prefer an elusive and often invisible enemy. This way, it's a lot easier to just make shit up.

    • Re:Cold War, take... Two? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by morgan_greywolf ( 835522 ) * on Monday May 21, 2007 @03:23PM (#19212005) Homepage Journal

      You know, there are probably a lot of frustrated Washington bureaucrats and military types that would love to see a re-emergence of a Soviet Russian state--we'd be fighting real commies again, and not elusive and often invisible terrorists.


      That's what Iraq was at least partially about. Saddam Hussein was a very visible public figure -- it gave the folks back at home something to 'rally around.' With the War on Terror we're now back to shadow fighting enemies that we know very little about who sneak around blowing up stuff and killing troops. Does this last description sound familiar? It should if you know anything about the Vietnam War.

      If there's a big boogieman out there, we need to build weapons and tanks and planes and spend big bucks doing it. But the public rarely rallies behind a cause that looks confusing and hopeless... the American public likes the classic "the good guys (U.S.)" vs "the bad guys (Russia, Saddam, Ax1s of da 3v1l, etc.)", not us vs. some tactics.

      • If there's a big boogieman out there, we need to build weapons and tanks and planes and spend big bucks doing it.

        At the moment, there're a couple of bogeymen: Iran and China. Hopefully we'll never have to worry about going to war with either one, because it would be damned ugly under the best circumstances.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by MadJo ( 674225 )
        The invasion of Iraq was a smoke screen.
        How is the hunt for Bin-Laden / Al'Qaeda going lately, any news from that front? I thought that pres. Bush had said that he would make sure that he'd get the people who were behind that attack on 9/11... instead he screwed up Afghanistan and it's economy (leaving a lot of mess for the UN to pick up after him, which makes Bush look a lot like a toddler) in order to invade Iraq. (And to this day I do not know the real reason behind US' attack on Baghdad, other than oil
    • Wrong, we'd be fighting both. Namely elusive, invisible terrorists possibly funded and probably armed by the kremlin. We'd be moving towards all out war with Russia while trying to continue our game of whack-a-mole with the terrorists. More likely, the millitary would not be happy with a revived Soviet opposition, it would be too much. Though the traditional Soviet enemy was easier to deal with, and would be preferable, we can't have both at the same time. Too expensive.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by u-bend ( 1095729 )
        Perhaps poor wording on my part. My statement was a whimsical "what-if" which was inspired by a mental image of mostly older, mostly white guys in Washington mopping their brows and having private moments of nostalgia for the cold war days (especially the later ones). Sure, people died in the 80s (google Maj Nicholson), and Vietnam was a disaster, but we largely felt good about ourselves as the champions of freedom, democracy and capitalism. Now, while still ostensibly standing for those things, we're havin

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by WilliamSChips ( 793741 )
        The Kremlin has never funded terrorists and the documents the neocons used to claim those things were in fact so-called "Black Propaganda" released by the CIA to dissuade neutrals from the USSR by associating them with terrorists. And of course, Islamic terrorism has always been a joke given that we've had only two attacks in the past two decades whereas white supremacists and anti-choicers* have made made over 32 attacks in 2007 alone.

        *You lose the right to be called pro-"life" when you try to take the

        • The Kremlin has never funded terrorists...

          Never said they did, they have however funded our own enemies. Not to mention the fact that their are effectively two guns of war in the world, the AK-47 and the M-16. Someone is/was selling the AK-47s.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mvdwege ( 243851 )

          The Kremlin has never funded terrorists

          Don't be silly. History is quite clear for those that want to read it without ideological blinders: both sides in the Cold War preferred to let client states do the dirty work. The Kremlin may not have paid for things like the Lockerbie attack, but it damn well propped up the regimes that made these things possible, in the full knowledge what those folks were up to with their freshly-gotten military knowledge and materiel.

          the documents the neocons used to claim tho

        • And of course, Islamic terrorism has always been a joke given that we've had only two attacks in the past two decades

          Right. London, Madrid, WTC1, USS Cole, Dar-es-salaam, Nairobi, Bali, just for the more visible ones.
        • What the hell would you call the support of various Marxist militias in Latin America? What about producing millions of AK-47s and flooding huge parts of the world within them?

          Now I'm not defending the US, who was usually doing the same damn thing, except they tended to prop up fascists, because of the dogmatic position that a murderous pro-capitalist tyrant is much better than a pro-communist tyrant.
    • if anything, europe is way more agitated than the usa. this is because the eu expanded into old soviet bloc countries and a russian awakening from its post cold war hangover is feeling rather nationalistic about it's old sphere of influence. witness the latest conflagration in estonia over just a world war ii statue of a russian soldier being moved

      plus the recent summit in samara resulted in nothing but serious discord [spiegel.de]

      so russia and europe are seriously butting heads right now, but the usa? not so much

      the cold war was characterized by an ideology which directly threatened the usa. communism was dead set on taking over the world. so it was a real global struggle. now, russia is just a garden variety autocracy. if russia went into chile or peru or bolivia in the cold war, the usa would get agitated: communism spreading. but russia could go over now and give tanks and kalishnikovs to these countries and it would be no big deal: there is no ideological oomph behind the gesture, no real threat in terms of ideas. communism has died, lost its lustre, no one seriously believes in it anymore

      and today? today we have islamic fundamentalists who are dead set on putting large swaths of the world under sharia law. and the meddling usa is a prime enemy of that effort, so it will be targetted big time. in some ways this new world is less dangerous, because massive world war of huge armies and scary war machinery won't be unleashed at the slightest gaffe or bravado. but in other ways, the threat of fundamentalist terrorism is more dangerous, since if someone sets a nuke off in times square, there is no clear line of accountability. if russia nuked times square, red square would cease to exist too. if times square gets nuked today, who can you blame?

      • if times square gets nuked today, who can you blame?

        History suggests that we'd blame Sadam Hussein.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tnk1 ( 899206 )

        if russia nuked times square, red square would cease to exist too. if times square gets nuked today, who can you blame?

        You mean, if islamists bombed Times Square, who can you *nuke*?

        That's what it comes down to. We held off the Soviets because the Soviets were ideological, but they are atheists and so, they understood and properly weighed the costs of mutually assured destruction. In other words, they believed that if they died, they were dead and that was that. The communists may have been authoritarian

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Nimey ( 114278 )
      Yes, because gods know we need to have a war on two fronts...

      Oh? We do already?

      Well, carry on then.
    • Why would we trust them with the important role of "eternal enemy" yet again, when they've proven themselves deficient in the "eternal" department? Terrorism is a MUCH better eternal enemy, precisely because it is so elusive and invisible. Have we won yet? Who knows!
  • Whodathunk.

  • Not too different from MSNBC (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Vicarius ( 1093097 ) on Monday May 21, 2007 @03:04PM (#19211759)
    Not saying there is no censorship in Russian media, but why can't "state controlled" network can't impose its own agenda like many other media companies do?

    IMHO, if you want an objective news coverage, you have to look at the Internet, where an open uncensored discussion is possible.

    • Re:Not too different from MSNBC (Score:5, Funny)

      by Bearpaw ( 13080 ) on Monday May 21, 2007 @03:19PM (#19211969)

      IMHO, if you want an objective news coverage, you have to look at the Internet, where an open uncensored discussion is possible.
      This must be some usage of the word "objective" with which I am not yet familiar.

      ("Less corporate-dominated", I'd agree. But "objective" ...?)

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by clarkkent09 ( 1104833 )
      Not sure I understand what "state controlled" means here. Is it financed by the state i.e. from the taxes? From what I can tell from wikipedia, Channel One is a privately owned company, no?

      It does make all the difference. A public TV station should not use taxpayers money to promote a particular party or a politician. A private company can do whatever it wants.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tsm_sf ( 545316 )
        A public TV station should not use taxpayers money to promote a particular party or a politician.

        I'm starting to wonder about that... What is the rationale behind avoiding a position? Unbiased and impartial coverage shouldn't drive news networks, accuracy and truth should. If your party is on the wrong side of the truth you shouldn't expect equal treatment.

        For example, Bush and Gonzales are currently raping the constitution. Merely stating this fact would be seen as taking sides. Should they soft

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by turing_m ( 1030530 )
      "Not saying there is no censorship in Russian media, but why can't "state controlled" network can't impose its own agenda like many other media companies do?"

      It's a good question, but to answer it you need learn to read between the lines. You have to understand that a monopoly of influence is "good" when one group of people wield it, and "bad" when another group of people wield it.

      Putin is "bad" because he dispossessed several oligarchs of their ill-gotten wealth. If he were "good", Putin would allow so-cal

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Pecisk ( 688001 )
        So Putin is "good" just because he is mighty savior of Sovi..err, sorry, Russian people from mighty capitalism (yeah, what about those hyper wealthy people which are favorites of President)? And just because sometimes Western journalists have similar problems (Let's be clear - any arrogant power doesn't love critics or people who try to investigate those who are in power), it is equal and there is nothing to blame Russia about?

        I am getting tired "I am bad as you are, so no blame on me" shit everywhere, but

  • Actually, this is good news (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Control Group ( 105494 ) * on Monday May 21, 2007 @03:08PM (#19211825) Homepage
    It speaks well of the net progress in the ex-USSR from the mid-eighties to now that a) these journalists weren't shot/sent to Lefortovo and shot/sent to cut down trees in Siberia until they didn't need to be shot, and b) that the rest of the world has heard about it.

    On the time scale of massive societal shifts, things are still looking up. Backsliding, certainly, but it's still a far cry from the heyday of Soviet control.

    • It speaks well of the net progress in the ex-USSR from the mid-eighties to now that a) these journalists weren't shot/sent to Lefortovo and shot/sent to cut down trees in Siberia until they didn't need to be shot, and b) that the rest of the world has heard about it.

      It's certainly an improvement from the days when they would have been shot and then sent to cut down trees in Siberia. Honest mistake and all, but that was one hell of a cold winter for everyone in the city.

    • Re:Actually, this is good news (Score:4, Insightful)

      by flyingsquid ( 813711 ) on Monday May 21, 2007 @04:34PM (#19212891)
      It speaks well of the net progress in the ex-USSR from the mid-eighties to now that a) these journalists weren't shot/sent to Lefortovo and shot/sent to cut down trees in Siberia until they didn't need to be shot, and b) that the rest of the world has heard about it. On the time scale of massive societal shifts, things are still looking up. Backsliding, certainly, but it's still a far cry from the heyday of Soviet control.

      Tell that to Anna Politkovskaya and Paul Klebnikov, or the other Russian journalists who have been assassinated in recent years. Trying to read this as somehow being good news sounds disturbingly like the Neocon concept that democracy is somehow the long-term natural outcome of the human history, Bush's "people want to be free" theory. That idea is misguided as best, and as Iraq shows, dangerously unrealistic at worst. Western democracy is no more the natural outcome for a group of people than a house is the natural outcome for a pile of plywood, nails, and two-by-fours. Like making a house, democracy takes a lot of hard work and design, and continual upkeep. The developments in Russia- along with Russia's efforts to spread fear with its polonium assassinaton, and poisoning Ukraining politician Viktor Yushchenko with dioxin- suggest a deep, broad move towards totalitarianism. The odds of Russia emerging with a free society are good, but the outcome is not certain. It is too soon to pat ourselves on the back.

      Consider that the emergence of western-style democracies with individual rights and accountable heads of state is a recent development, something that has only become fully developed in the past few hundred years. Meanwhile, China has been ruled by totalitarianism of one form or another for thousands of years. So, looking at the big picture, isn't the sure money on totalitarianism to eventually take over the world, not democracy? Sure, the spread and success of democracy has been a remarkable success story... but for a while, it looked like Communism might well be the system to take over the world, and then that fell apart almost overnight. How can we be so certain that democracy won't be a similar historical anomaly? Remember how certain people were that democracy would take root in Iraq, and beat out the forces of the Baathists, radical Islamists, militias and criminals? Every time something went wrong, instead of looking at the possibility we were failing, we patted ourselves on the back and said, "Yes, but look at the big picture! It's so much better than it was under Saddam!". Democracy still may win in Iraq, but our arrogance and complacency, our certainty that it would win out over the forces of totalitarianism, religious extremism, and anarchy, have vastly reduced the chances that it will.

      Don't read this the wrong way. I actually agree with the Neocons on one issue: democracies should promote democracy outside their borders. But I think we need to understand that while this fight may be winnable, fighting for freedom is a hard, uphill fight, and that we are not necessarily destined to win the fight.

      • I didn't intend the comment as a statement of policy, but simply a comment on the fact that we're still better off (from a "spread of freedom as defined by western civilization" standpoint) than we were twenty, thirty years ago in that country.

        By no means do I draw the conclusion that it's time to dust off our hands and claim our work here is done. I was just trying to provide some perspective on the story, as opposed to wailing and gnashing of teeth. The fact that they had to step down at all means that th

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by moyl ( 1088733 )
        Where did you guys get the idea that Russia poisoned Yushchenko? It did not, at least it's never been proven by anyone. In the Ukraine, the investigation of this crime has all but frozen -- almost as if the country nationalist leaders know something about it that makes it better to keep it like that. The investigators found nothing, zilch, at least publicly. The press seems to have forgotten about it. There are persistent rumors that Ukraine's own SBU (Ukrainian Security Service) was involved.
        • Considering that poisoning was a favorite tactic of the KGB, and that a Russian has been implicated in the death of Litvenenko, I'd say odds are on that Russia, who has a lot to lose by the Ukraine turning away from its former colonial master, would use tried and true methods to both get rid of opposition and send a message to others that might think the same. Finding evidence linking Russian agents directly to any poisoning is going to be all but impossible, but there is a definite trend here of Russia un

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kjella ( 173770 )
      On the time scale of massive societal shifts, things are still looking up. Backsliding, certainly,

      Looking up: getting better or improving.
      Backsliding: Slipping back; falling back into sin or error

      Your sentence does not compute. Things are not looking up. it could have been worse but if this trend keeps up it will be worse. Nothing points to this as a lapse or minor setback, Putin has been clearly and constantly amassing power for many years now.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by orzetto ( 545509 )

      It would be interesting to hear the opinion of a Russian who is old enough to remember the Soviet eighties, still lives in Russia, and can compare the two conditions. My impression is that the current regime is more violent than Gorbachev's Soviet Union. Maybe not as pervasive, since the state apparatus is not as extensive; but mafia "solves problems" so much faster.

      As for the GULAG system [wikipedia.org] you allude to, which was officially shut down in 1960 in Kruschev's destalinisation wave, it was a long way in the pas

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by yoprst ( 944706 )
        This may sound weird for you, but Soviet Union was more or less like teocratic state, with religion replaced by communism. There was a set of nonsense beliefs you couldn't question that governed everyone's life. Gorbachev's time was a time when this system suffered a great erosion (toward a free country). Now it's more or less feudal state (before Magna Carta), but because the rulers want to look nice in Europe, there's a lot of brainwashing and Potemkins villages to pretend it's a nice democratic state. Th

  • Too bad... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DoofusOfDeath ( 636671 ) on Monday May 21, 2007 @03:16PM (#19211917)
    Too bad that their resignations will somehow fail to appear on the evening news programs. That kind of limits (but doesn't totally erase, I suspect) the impact of their protests.

  • Russia is well on its way (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Sciros ( 986030 ) on Monday May 21, 2007 @03:17PM (#19211931) Journal
    back to Soviet times. But this time with a healthy mix of organized crime and even more corruption!

    In a couple more years it might get to the point where being outspoken like this journalist will get you a one-way-ticket to the far East >_>

  • FTA (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Cancer_Cures ( 1000619 ) on Monday May 21, 2007 @03:18PM (#19211959)
    Eight reporters from the Russian News Service said they could not work under new rules that required them not to interview or mention opposition leaders such as Garry Kasparov and to ensure 50% coverage of "positive news". Kinda like how the U.S. main stream media does not mention Dennis Kucinich or Ron Paul.

    • mainstream media (Score:5, Funny)

      by Bearpaw ( 13080 ) on Monday May 21, 2007 @03:25PM (#19212023)

      Kinda like how the U.S. main stream media does not mention Dennis Kucinich or Ron Paul.
      Corporate media focuses on serious candidates, which are easily distinguished from non-serious candidates because ... um ... because if Kucinich or Paul were serious candidates, they'd be getting more media coverage.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Kinda like how the U.S. main stream media does not mention Dennis Kucinich or Ron Paul.
      Ron Paul was in the national spotlight last week and made an Ass out of himself.

      Dennis Kucinich, was in all the Democratic primary debates back in 2004 amd made Howard Dean look like a moderate.

      Just because the left and right nutjobs don't get to see thier candidates taken seriously in the media does not make it censorship. It makes your candidate a nutjob. Media companies are not going to waste time and effort on anyon
  • Congratulations Comrades! You and your journalist friends have just been selected for a trip to Political Re-education Camp! You'll spend 6 years and 6 months enjoying our fabulous new facilities located in sunny Siberia. You'll enjoy a rigorous exercise routine designed exclusively for our attendees by our award winning staff of high ranking former KGB officials! You'll marvel at our state of the art housing facilities with all the amenities you've come to know and love, such things as fresh running wa

  • The good news... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TrappedByMyself ( 861094 ) on Monday May 21, 2007 @03:32PM (#19212101)
    ...is that we know about this story. The journalists didn't disappear into the night before they could be heard. It may not seem like it, but it is progress.
    • Help me take back Slashdot. When did 'News for Nerds' become 'FUD and Conspiracy Theories for Extremist Nutjobs'?

      Good question. I'd guess sometime between users number 105495 and 861095.

      I kid, of course.
      • Must be a hell of a lot closer to 105495 than 861095, because this place was a hotbed of conspiracy theories before I got here - and I lurked for quite a while before creating an account. Incidentally, though, conspiracies are everywhere! They're utterly commonplace.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dhalgren ( 34798 )

          Incidentally, though, conspiracies are everywhere!


          It's worse than you think. The conspiracies are starting to work together. It's almost like a...um...what's that word?

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by ACS Solver ( 1068112 )
      That, or they got lucky. It's not like certain other journalists [wikipedia.org] that disagree with the Kremlin don't get murdered on Putin's birthday.
  • Someone has to do it...

    "Khaaaaaaaaan!!"

  • can at least follow russians' suit? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by superwiz ( 655733 ) on Monday May 21, 2007 @03:48PM (#19212305) Journal
    How many journalists quit in post-911 self-imposed editor censorship? Is this what the world has come to? Russian journalists have more ethics than ours?

  • LA Times front page today (Score:4, Insightful)

    by sjw02001 ( 820841 ) on Monday May 21, 2007 @04:02PM (#19212527)
    http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-f g-gazeta21may21,1,1616926,full.story?coll=la-headl ines-world&ctrack=3&cset=true/ [latimes.com]
    For those who don't RTFA, this basically says there is one independent newspaper which publishes 3 times a week, is funded mostly by Gorbachev and another prominent politician, incurs huge losses, and has had mysterious accidents including death happen to several reporters. Any political scientist can tell you that this is not a sign of a healthy free press, and without a healthy free press democracy suffers due to lack of good information. Basically, the West has been worried about Putin and his backsliding into authoritarianism for quite some time but hasn't had the balls to do much about it. Yes, there is the internet, but you assume that a) everyone in Russia who wants to can get their news from the net, which is not true for many poor elderly folks, and b) those who might be politically savvy are tech savvy enough to find the independent sources on the net. If you lived through Soviet times, you'd be skittish about seeking out politically sensitive info if you had any sense.
    In other words, this is a big deal.

  • This is progress! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by $criptah ( 467422 ) on Monday May 21, 2007 @05:33PM (#19213677) Homepage

    Khrushchev and Kennedy are talking about freedom of expression. Kennedy says, "In United States, anybody can come out and scream 'Kennedy sucks!' Nothing will happen to that person because we have freedom of expression in the United States." Khrushchev smiles and says, "So what? If a person goes to the Red Square and shouts 'Kennedy sucks!' nothing will happen to that person too!"

    We have a bunch of folks who resigned because of the censorship. That is awesome! At least they did not up in Siberia like my ancestors. I bet writing a letter and saying "I do not work here anymore." was easier than living on a bread-and-water-and-beatings diet in prison. I am not going to engage into a debate on us-vs-them because every governmentt in the world has a dark side.

    In the past, way too many Russian journalists died under interesting circumstances. These guys are alive, so the country is heading somewhere when compared to its neighbor, Belarus.

  • *rips up joke and wanders off in disgust*
  • What was the issue that got the journalists to quit? if they were spreading disinformation, then it does not look so bad to me.

    And it is not that there is no censorship in the US. Remember the two professors that wanted to speak about how the Jewish* community affects the media? their presentation was canceled.

    There are topics in every place on Earth that might cause censorship. For example, try to talk about the positive things nazis did in Germany, and your chances of being censored are quite high.

    Or try
  • Journalists discover polonium in their bloodstreams.
  • In Putins Russia, the Government controls the media moguls!

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