Journalists pay price for criticising government

[stickdog]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,2763,1298621,00.html

The editor of Russia's best known daily, Izvestiya, was sacked yesterday, two days after the newspaper carried strong criticism of the government's handling of the Beslan school tragedy.

Raf Shakirov lost his job after the paper questioned the fact that officials claimed the number of hostages was only 350, reported that parents of the hostages were the first to enter the school ahead of the security forces, and published a powerful column denouncing the censored coverage of the events by state TV.

(snip)

Two of Russia's leading journalists, with independent views on Chechnya were not even able to get to Beslan, it emerged yesterday. Andrei Babitsky, of Radio Liberty, was arrested at Moscow's Vnukovo airport on Thursday and stopped from flying south as police searched his bag claiming he might have explosives. After they had finished, two strangers came up and started a scuffle. They and Mr Babitsky were detained and Mr Babitsky was charged with "hooliganism". The next day he was sentenced to five days in prison.

Anna Politkovskaya, a reporter for Novaya Gazeta who received death threats for her reporting on Chechnya and has denounced the Russian forces for atrocities, was mysteriously taken ill on a plane from Vnukovo to Rostov. After drinking tea supplied by the stewardess, she fainted. Doctors said she had been poisoned. Later she flew back to Moscow on a private plane without going to Beslan and was taken to hospital in the capital. She is recovering at home and was unavailable for comment yesterday.

[POed_Ex_Repub]

1. Wow... he actually got his message out first...

Seems like their media is doing better than ours these days...

[POed_Ex_Repub]

2. Double Post n/t

[Nordic]

3. Putin is Bush's role model

[Renew Deal]

5. Damn right he is.

[Dem2theMax]

4. Should we send this to all US media and ask them

if this is what they are afraid of?

[nosmokes]

6. tell them this is their future if they don't get off their ass

and do their job.

[Judi Lynn]

9. Unfortunately, it's all in their hands.

Too bad we need the information so keenly. They are neglecting their duty. If they don't know we're mad about it, it's damned time they learned.

There should be something the people could do to get decent journalists back in our newspapers, doing what they're supposed to do.

I guess it will have to be organized, since they obviously don't respect our individual letters and phone calls.

[beevul]

7. Truly disgusting...

and hopefully not a sign of things to come in America. Though, I fear we are rapidly headed in that direction, unless people WAKE UP.

[Rhiannon12866]

8. This is truly scary!

It looks like they are returning to earlier tactics, in dealing with journalistic freedoms.;(

[area51]

10. headline

When I saw the headline on LBN, I thought it was referring to the USA press.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

11. Me too...

I figured there were more Michael Moores getting canned.

[Matilda]

12. Back to the Future for Russia.

So sad after the hope and promise of the Gorbachev years.

[Rhiannon12866]

17. Absolutely! Gorbachev was responsible for so many reforms

It was made more difficult for him when Reagan was president, however, since the hard-liners opposed his reforms because they were afraid when Reagan refused to give up Star Wars. I was there, at the time, and the people I spoke to were afraid of Reagan, since his policies made life more difficult for them and, having experienced WWII on their own soil, and having suffered greatly, they are terrified of another war. Even the schoolchildren have this drummed into them. They preferred President Carter. His policies made life easier for them.:shrug:

[emad]

13. Why he was sacked:

http://images.thetimes.co.uk/TGD/picture/0,,146284,00.jpg
The front page of Izvestia from Saturday that led to the Editor's sacking

Two days later Raf Shakirov, the Editor of Izvestia, was dismissed because his weekend edition ran a full front-cover photograph of a man carrying a half-naked girl out of the school in Beslan. Inside the paper, the headline read: “The whole floor was strewn with the bodies of dead children.”

The owner of the paper, the metals magnate Vladimir Potanin, prides himself on good relations with the Kremlin. Mr Shakirov’s front page was at odds with official attempts to play down the horror at Beslan. The dismissal is ominous because the Russian printed press has, until now, managed to maintain an element of freedom in its coverage, compared with the tightly controlled television.

Having transformed Izvestia from a grey Soviet rag and increased its circulation to 234,500, Mr Shakirov will join the ranks of outspoken former media figures, unable to find work in Russia.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,171-1250051,00.html

[stickdog]

14. kick

[Jacobin]

15. Gee. Sounds Just Like Amerika and IraqNam

[dArKeR]

16. Second reporter drugged by officials

Concern over Russia's treatment of journalists covering the Beslan siege increased on Friday after a toxicologist revealed that traces of a tranquillizer had been found in a reporter who was arrested on her way to the school.

The revelation came two days after the renowned Russian investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya claimed she had been drugged while on a flight to Beslan from Moscow.

She said she became drowsy after taking tea on the plane and woke up in hospital, where a nurse told her she had been drugged but that the records had been destroyed.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2004/09/12/2003202600

[arikara]

18. I watched "Outfoxed" the other day

Its just not that different in the USA. Maybe your journalists aren't being drugged, but they certainly do get sacked and blacklisted for not toeing the party line.

[Rhiannon12866]

19. I watched "Outfoxed" movie last week. It should be required viewing

for DUers and Freepers alike. What is happening in the media is a total disgrace. And it is also very frightening, since the major networks are bending under the influence of this totally right-wing propaganda machine, all in pursuit of ratings.:scared:

WHAT "liberal media?" There is none as far as I can see.:shrug: