Wrestling With Bears

An entrepreneurial Siberian news organization defends its independence in Russia’s increasingly restrictive media environment. by Nick Guroff 29 May 2007 BARNAUL, Russia | Mother Nature is smiling on the residents of the southern Siberian city of Barnaul even if their government is not. The early spring temperature is unusually warm, especially for the thousands gathered at central Lenin Square to protest a government plan to raise phone and natural gas tariffs.

Yelena Nikishenko sits in the back seat of her newspaper’s car on the way to the protest. Her newspaper, The Free Course, has faced down threats and abuses to become a leading independent voice, at a time when more and more media are controlled by the government or powerful corporate interests, and pressure from both determines what makes the front page or the broadcast news.

“I think we’ve been good at not letting threats to the paper affect our reporting,” Nikishenko says. “We’re going to go out and cover opposition protests, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to tip our hat to the protesters.”

At the square in this city of 600,000 people, flags of the Communist and Yabloko parties billow above the sea of fur hats. On the rostrum, the flatbed of a Soviet-era truck, speakers are waiting their turns. Photographers from The Free Course and other local outlets flank the stage.

Nikishenko hangs back from the pack, jotting down an occasional note. Her cameraman waits for the protest to surge onto the steps of the government building. When it does, the crowd is barred from the entrance by a row of police and denied a meeting with the regional governor. An officer rips an opposition party banner from the hands of an old man, and knocks a woman to the ground.

The cameraman forces his way into the middle of the fray as a group of pensioners surrounds the young officer, grabbing at his coat from all sides. After a few clicks, he forces his way back through the crowd in the direction of the office to get the photographs to Nikishenko and on the web.

It’s just another news day in this remote capital of the Altai Krai region. But the region and its leading newspaper are anything but typical.

“It’s not that our competitors won’t cover a story like this, it is a matter of how,” Nikishenko says. “On TV news there will maybe be five seconds of protest and five minutes on the governor’s point of view.”

TURBULENT SEAS

The sea change in Russian media that began in the twilight of the Soviet Union has taken a sharp reverse since Putin was elected in 2000. Media are less free to focus on political coverage and investigative reporting. Journalists complain of being forced to toe the official line. Those who step out of line face intimidation, and there have been killings of some high-profile journalists.

Some journalists, not just at The Free Course, have resisted pressures to conform. In late May, for example, eight reporters for a broadcast news agency resigned to protest what they said were orders barring them from covering opposition political leaders and a mandate that half their news be “positive.”

Despite the risks, editors at The Free Course are confident that they have a formula for continued success that won’t compromise their journalistic standards. In its 15 years, the newspaper’s parent company, Altapress, has become one of the most profitable and well-recognized ventures of its kind. The diversified media company employs more than 1,000 people and is a leading taxpayer in Barnaul.

The challenge is that the more prominent Altapress becomes, the more formidable it grows in the eyes of the authorities. Whether the company’s formula for success can translate to other struggling, independent news organizations across Russia may depend on whether they themselves can stay afloat.

“We don’t foresee having any more problems, but Russia’s an unpredictable country,” says Yuri Purgin, chief executive of Altapress. “If we’ve learned anything, it’s that our business could be threatened at any time and without warning.”

And that’s why, Purgin says, Altapress built a new office building designed to look like a boat, complete with a blue cylinder in the likeness of a ship’s smokestack.

“You get it, right?” Purgin says, gesturing out the window of his executive office atop the old Soviet press building. “The building is shaped like that as if to say, ‘we’re steering a free course, in a turbulent sea.’ ”

Purgin folds his arms and settles into his chair, recalling the day the Barnaul vice mayor introduced him to a “man from the president’s office” who threatened to close Altapress.

“This ‘guy from the Kremlin’ gave me an ultimatum: ‘publish the articles you’ve been given, or lose your business,’ ” Purgin says, glancing out the window at the panorama of wooden buildings and Soviet-era concrete flats.

In the fall of 2004, Purgin explains, the Kremlin was running a smear campaign against local politician Vladimir Ryzhkov, who had long been critical of Putin. The regional leadership fell in line with the Kremlin and expected the media to do the same.

Ryzhkov, a deputy of the State Duma, is leader of the Republican Party of Russia, which was shut down by the authorities this spring.

“The vice mayor later repeated the threats and suggested we agree to the proposition,” Purgin says. “He said it was a kind piece of advice from a fellow townsman. I thanked him for his kindness, but declined.”

Purgin spent long hours consulting with Vladimir Ovchinnikov, editor-in-chief of The Free Course, debating their options. They couldn't afford to ignore the threat, but a direct confrontation with local prosecutors could drag on in the courts. So they wrote a letter for publication in The Free Course.

The editors saw the threats as something bigger than a one-time attack on a local politician. They feared being shut down by the government or dogged by the government in other ways – earlier, the authorities launched tax audits, organized blogs aimed at discrediting The Free Course, and excluded the paper from press conferences.

And it eventually became clear to Purgin and Ovchinnikov that the vice mayor’s threat came at the behest of the Kremlin. A week earlier a representative from Moscow who was helping to organize the anti-Ryzhkov campaign had issued, according to Purgin, a similar ultimatum making it clear that he spoke for the Kremlin.

“The press will not play the fool with the people,” the editors' letter declared. It chronicled the government’s intimidations, asserting, “freedom of the press is not a privilege of television, radio, or newspapers. We all need it to fight the strengthening bureaucracy.”

The letter was quickly distributed through the halls of Altapress for signatures. At the same time, Kremlin representatives were sitting down with other media in the region. Either because of threats or money, each published the incendiary materials against Ryzhkov.

JOURNALISTS UNITE

But then came something totally unexpected: reporters for the government-controlled media began signing the letter, too. Purgin, who only recently had been attacking government funding for news organizations, was astonished. For some, it turned out, the government's pressure tactics had gone too far.

Natalya Pitakhina, a news editor for Altai Television, recounts how she was taking a smoke break with the television studio director, Yuri Masalov. “He told me, ‘you can’t imagine, Natalya, the shit you’re in for putting your signature on this letter,’ ” she says.

Earlier, a colleague had pinned the letter to the break room bulletin board. Pitakhina was one of the first to sign. “The campaign against Ryzhkov and the pressure coming from authorities was just too ridiculous and inappropriate,” she says.

For weeks Pitakhina and other journalists had shared their indignation in the privacy of the station’s kitchenette over instant coffee and hot tea. After signing the letter, Pitakhina expected the worst. Journalists had lost their jobs for less elsewhere. And as she went about her work, waiting for a call from management, her colleagues visited the bulletin board.

“No one wanted to do it openly,” Pitakhina says. “They all, by turns, read it and signed their names. It was like a chain reaction.”

Reporters from Altayskaya Pravda and Vecherny Barnaul, papers in which the campaign against Ryhzkov had originally run, signed on. Yuri Purgin’s wife, a radio talk show host, gathered signatures at the government-run radio station.

Eventually, employees from more than 250 media companies across Russia signed the letter.

The letter ran in The Free Course. Pitakhina and others kept their jobs, though management did not hesitate to make their displeasure known during editorial meetings. “During those meetings, those of us who signed, would just smile at each other in ways we didn’t before and don’t now,” Pitakhina says.

In 15 years, The Free Course has grown from a groundbreaking bi-monthly to a leading regional daily. Today the paper is but one arm of a media powerhouse that produces 10 other publications, manages a radio station, and owns its own printing house and distribution network.

Purgin has extended his national reach by helping to establish the Association of Independent Regional Publishers, a group supported by the U.S. Agency for International Development, World Association of Newspapers and other foreign funders. The organization works to counter government influence on the media market.

WEAK STANDARDS?

For all of Altapress’ achievements, even the biggest supporters of The Free Course say the company’s quality of journalism could be better.

“The Free Course may be the best business model to upstart independent papers, but when it comes to their reporting … there are better examples,” says Maria Eismont, head the USAID-funded program Russian Independent Print Media, which has provided technical support and training to Altapress over the years.

“They forget that the overall quality of the newspaper is dropping when its pages are full with paid stories,” Eismont says. “I think they just care a lot more about their business as a publishing house than about the content of their main newspaper.”

Veronica Dmitriyeva, program director for the Moscow office of the Prague and New York–based Media Development Loan Fund, agrees. “But to their credit, they’re critical when it counts and true advocates.”