Slashdot Mirror
Russian Journalists Quit Over Censorship
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."
It's a nice gesture, but the poor guy has a long road ahead of him.
Czar Putin, you sure that's a good idea?
"Next up, Channel One Exposes Number Two..."
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.
You can't handle the truth.
... Kremlin mods YOU down!
Have gnu, will travel.
Whats a few surveillance cameras when poor Putin has a camera crew following him everywhere!!
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
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?
Libertarian Leaning Political Discussion Forum.
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.
"Please, shut up. Just when I think you can't say anything more stupid, you speak again." -Archie Bunker.
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.
u-bend
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.
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.
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
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.
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 >_>
I like basketball!!1!
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.
You will MOD yourself down! Or face the consequences!
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
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
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?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
...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'?
Someone has to do it...
"Khaaaaaaaaan!!"
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?
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-f g-gazeta21may21,1,1616926,full.story?coll=la-headl ines-world&ctrack=3&cset=true/
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.
The "International Herald Tribune" has just published a report 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) to broadcast pro-Kremlin news. One Russian listener of RNS commented on the new format by writing, on the RNS web site, " Down with Kremlin censorship! Yesterday elevators were discussed. Today, buckwheat. Are not there any other topics? "
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.