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22.04.07
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Subversive And Accessible
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By Yelena Rykovtseva
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The Internet Provides New Options for Russian Writers
The experience of a team of journalists fired two years ago from Moscow News is at once strange, sad, and instructive. The editor at the time, Yevgeny Kiselyov, fired both his deputies – Lyudmila Telen and Mikhail Shevelev – as well as several of the paper’s top journalists. The remaining staff were so angered that they handed in their resignations in protest. All of these people ended up out of work. Telen called some editors she knew and made requests for each journalist individually. A few months later, Telen herself received a good offer, when she was asked to establish a new magazine, Bolshaya Politika. Telen brought with her some faithful colleagues from Moscow News and this amicable and professional team started producing a newspaper that was, according to those who read it, striking, profound, and unusually interesting.
The magazine, however, was read by a very narrow circle of people. There were subscribers, a few dozen big names in politics and the mass media and there were those who bought it in the supermarket or a newspaper stand, but these were few and far between. For a thick, illustrated magazine to pay for itself at least partially, it had to have a high cover price. At 100-120 rubles per issue, Bolshaya Politika cost about the same as Cosmopolitan. And remember that Bolshaya Politika was a publication for a specialist, intellectual and generally not wealthy audience rather than a popular product for mass consumption.
Yet a high profile comes with time. The Bolshaya Politika team hoped to make its brainchild recognizable and desirable in just a dozen or so issues. It had a decent chance of doing so – except for one crucial thing: The owners refused point blank to put up the funds for an internet version of the publication. The owners were rank amateurs in the publishing business; additionally, they were the embodiment of that archaic and unfortunately large part of Russian society that has only a dim idea about the Internet, and therefore holds it, like everything else unknown, in suspicion. And they had, of course, no idea about the amazing promotional possibilities the Internet affords. The result was a closed circle. The publishers demanded fame for the magazine, but refused to popularize it through the most accessible and cheapest method. Only a few articles from the magazine made it onto the Internet by chance.
This situation could not continue, and indeed, it did not. The publishers announced they were cutting the funding, and the team of high-class journalists was again fired. Fortunately, there was little downtime. A new investor was found and the team began producing an internet newspaper, called Izbrannoye – the Russian Internet equivalent of “favorites.” The first issue came out in March. When I asked Telen what benefits she saw in Internet publications over printed ones, she said that the main advantage was the absence of censorship. Second came lower production costs and third, she said that you don’t have the main headache that owners of printed Russian media have – distribution problems. You don’t have to put effort into dealing with the lunacy of this market caused by postal organizations and distribution companies. And last, but not least, you have direct, instant contact with the audience. On the Internet it is much easier to see what the readers like best.
Telen was so excited about the advantages of Internet newspapers that after speaking with her, it was hard to remember why the printed press still exists. Yet taking a more serious look at this question, I think that Russia still holds greater respect for the printed page than other developed countries because the Internet is still not very widespread in Russia. Internet publications will become more popular as user numbers grow. In Russia, these are directly correlated. Russian voters are still controlled by television precisely because it ensnares all of them. Strange though it seems, I do not think that the average Russian will be drawn to the Internet by the absence of censorship. Judging by the huge demand for ideologically sterilized news and political shows on state channels, censorship is not the main concern. Most people are likely to be drawn by the amount of information available, in which field the Internet has no peers. It has already been demonstrated repeatedly that the future of the media depends on Internet journalists.
On the other hand, censorship dramatically increased the quality and attractiveness of the Russian Internet, since the country’s best writers, squeezed out of their usual haunts for “incorrect” views, are attracted to it. And if the conservative Russian intelligentsia gets to grips with the Internet, then on many sites it will be surprised to see the same professional level as in its favorite printed newspapers.
Besides being married to Alexei Pankin, Yelena Rykovtseva is a correspondent for Radio Liberty. She contributed this comment, which represents her own views and not those of Radio Liberty, to Russia Profile. |
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