Excerpt from the weekly analytical program on the media, Chetvertaya Vlast ("Fourth Estate"), January 22, 2000, No. 100

Coverage of the First War

Coverage of the Second War

Interview on coverage of the Chechen war with Moskovsky Komsomolets' Julia Kalinina

Anchor Maria Slonim: Initially Fourth Estate should have aired on the Russian state channel RTR. But the first, or more exactly, the zero edition of the show was cut because of a piece on the information war in Chechnya which the Russian side lost. The first Chechen war had only recently come to an end, so it was still was a sore spot. Now the Russian authorities recognize that the first Chechen war was lost on all fronts. Today they are trying to make up for what was lost then. We decided to draw an analogy between what happened on the fronts of the information war then, five years ago, and now. Tatyana Koroleva tells the story:

Koroleva: It happened five years ago. Today we know that it was the first Chechen war. Today we know that after the first one would be the second Chechen war. And nobody knows when it will end. We know about the present war from official reports. We learned about the first war from journalists.

Valery Yakov, deputy editor-in-chief of the newspaper Novie Izvestia:

Then journalists had the opportunity to tell the truth about events in Chechnya. Then we didn't have to believe the official propaganda, didn't have to believe the Chechen propaganda - we could see what really happened with our own eyes.

Vladimir Luskanov, NTV news analyst:

There was a very short period of victory of the freedom of the press in this country. And if we were able to do something for that victory, I'm proud.

Koroleva: While generals boasted that our army was fully prepared, journalists told about hungry, poorly-equipped soldiers. While the Defense Ministry alleged that our soldiers were like superheroes, the television showed that they were 18 year-olds who knew about war only through children games.

Igor Malashenko, first deputy chairman of the board of directors of Media Most

The media made obvious all of the miscalculations, stupidity, and even crimes committed in Chechnya.

Koroleva: That war had its rules, but there was no censorship. Freedom of the press totally smashed the official propaganda.

Malashenko: There was no censorship as such during the first Chechen war. There were only some attempts to put pressure on the press.

Koroleva: The private Russian television station NTV nearly lost its broadcasting license over its unflattering coverage of the Chechen war. Russian journalists told the public that Chechens were not only bearded fighters with green headbands, but also that the main victims of the bombardments were children, women, and old people.

Malashenko: During the first Chechen war Russian journalists had the opportunity to show both sides of the conflict.

Koroleva: The one side was the federal forces. The other side was the army of Dzhokhar Dudaev. Today we call Basaev and Raduev terrorists and gang leaders of bandits. During the first Chechen war they were called the field-commanders. Journalists interviewed them, attended their news conferences. And sometimes, let's be honest, Russian journalists romanticized their images.

Luskanov: Chechen field-commanders no longer have the trust of journalists that they enjoyed during the first war. Now they have completely lost our trust.

Koroleva: In order for the public to know the truth about the war, journalists have to provide balanced coverage. Balanced coverage cannot be one-sided. During the first Chechen war this was the general belief among journalists. That is why they went to gather material from the Chechen side.

Malashenko: In the beginning, Chechen leaders were smart enough to ensure normal working conditions for Russian journalists on their side of the frontline.

Koroleva: Journalists died in that war. Sometimes it was easier to die than to stay alive. Journalists became goods for trading or selling in that war. This is, without a doubt, the know- how of the first Chechen war.

Luskanov: It's not our fault. It's the fault of the people who are responsible for the genocide of 1996-1998, the genocide of journalists.

Koroleva: In the modern world, information has a high price. In modern Russia, the price for information is too high. It is more expensive than money.

Luskanov: Because of the great danger to reporters, because of the inhuman conditions under which they have to work - all of these taken together are not worth even a single second of an interview with Basaev or even with Allah himself.

Anchor Maria Slonim: The newly-appointed information coordinator of the Russian-Chechen campaign, Sergei Yastrzhembsky, asserted that censorship on coverage of the Chechen war would not be introduced. However, information from the federal side is strictly restricted. Journalists on the federal side have to work under the strict control of the Defense Ministry and the Interior Ministry, and we are not getting the full picture.

Fourth Estate Correspondent Yevgeny Krasnolobov: The federal forces began yet another storm of Grozny this week, and even military personnel admit that there is heavy fighting on the outskirts of the city. Meanwhile, official statistics still report no more than 3-5 Russian soldier casualties per day. More and more frequently, journalists are beginning to doubt this information. The heroic image in the Russian media of the army decisively attacking, expertly avenging Chechen Islamic terrorists, is gradually giving way to another more dreary picture. Articles about hungry soldiers, about the marauding and looting by the Russian forces, and articles accusing the military command of understating casualty figures have even begun appearing in publications usually loyal to the Kremlin.

But nevertheless, official channels assert that no one is trying to conceal information about Chechnya that would be unflattering to the authorities.

Mikhail Margelov, head of the Russian Information Center (Rosinformtsentr)

It doesn't make sense to conceal losses because the truth will come out anyway; it will come out later and any attempts to hide it will hit more painfully the prestige of politicians, the prestige of the army and security bodies.

Krasnolobov: Margelov says that the rumors concerning low casualty figures are being spread by the TV channels NTV and TV Center. These channels, according to Margelov, began an information war against Putin in this presidential election campaign period. However, NTV denies that it is using the topic of Chechnya to discredit the acting president.

Vladimir Kulistikov, editor-in-chief of the NTV news department

We are trying to give our viewers the full picture of what is happening in Chechnya. But, unfortunately, the official sources cannot always give us the full picture. That's why we have to use other sources.

Krasnolobov: According to Kulistikov, this explains NTV's decision to show the tape shot in Grozny by Radio Liberty reporter Andrei Babitsky. This caused the Russian government's Information Center to react angrily. The Center can accept the fact that mass media doubts official information and figures. But it considers journalists who make contact with the rebels to be accomplices of terrorists.

Margelov: In principle, any journalist who has spent time on the territory taken over by the terrorists should be interrogated by security organs. I should also mention that Russian authorities are demonstrating a kind of superliberalism, because not one of the foreign corespondents, not one of the Russian freelancers working for western mass media has been interrogated.

Krasnolobov: We met Andrei Babitsky in the summer, when Basaev's fighters had just arrived in Dagestan. Now it is absolutely impossible to catch him at the Moscow office of Radio Liberty - from the very beginning of the Chechen campaign he has been working constantly on the Chechen side of the frontline. However, his colleagues vehemently deny the assertion of the Russian Information Center that Babitsky is spreading false information.

Vladimir Baburin, editor-in-chief of the Moscow office of Radio Liberty

There have been no instances, and I know Andrei since the last war, of his ever giving unverified information. If he says he counted ten corpses, it doesn't mean there were ten dead bodies, there could be many more dead. It means he personally saw at least ten corpses.

Krasnolobov: It seems that today Babitsky is the only reporter remaining in Grozny. And although not only the authorities, but even some journalist colleagues accuse the Radio Liberty correspondent of a lack of patriotism, no one has yet been able to refute his reports from Chechnya. Thanks to Babitsky the world is able to find out what is going on today under the shroud of fog and smoke in the besieged Chechen capital.

Anchor Maria Slonim: Today, in our weekly studio interview, we will continue the topic of press coverage of Chechnya in our conversation with Julia Kalinina of the newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets.

Slonim: Julia, you covered the first Chechen war and now you write about coverage of the second war. What is your impression? Because, it seems to us, I mean to people who only read about this war and watch it on TV, that something has changed even in the journalists' approach to this war.

Kalinina: I don't think so. I think the journalists' approach is the same. I think the way it is covered in the Russian media has changed. Now we see only the Russian side. We don't see the other side. And to be honest, I think that's bad. Personally, I would like to see the whole picture, even if it's really terrible. I believe a person should have complete information in order to make the right decision. But the official approach is a bit different.

Slonim: But now I think something is changing. Every day the papers give more and more information on what is really going on in Chechnya. And it seems that the federal side doesn't like it. Because if people get the truth about the war, it won't look so heroic.

Kalinina: I think this is the main reason we see such restricted coverage of the war in the Russian media. Because, even if you cover the war from the federal side, you can still find enough evidence showing that the military operation is not going as smoothly as they say. But journalists have to work in conditions where they simply cannot give any negative information. You have to work with the military; you depend on them. Only the Russian military can get to the frontline. Only they can show you what you want to see. And if you report in a way that they don't like, they simply won't take you next time. By the way this is now the big problem for NTV. I know they are always refused from getting on military helicopters. Officers just won't give them interviews. They say: "NTV -no. ORT is O.K. But NTV - no."

Slonim: Right. But we get information from the other side anyway. Mainly it doesn't even come from journalists; there are only few journalists, like Andrei Babitsky from Radio Liberty, working there. The information mostly comes from Chechen propaganda.

Kalinina: As for Chechen propaganda, thanks to my experience working during the previous war, (and the people who are working there are the same), I can sift out what they say. But we shouldn't trust their propaganda. That's why I appreciate Andrei Babitsky's work so much. At least he is trying to getting some of the truth to us.

Slonim: How long will this situation keep up? I mean from the journalists' point of view. How long will they be able to conceal what is really going on in Chechnya?

Kalinina: Actually, I don't think it depends on journalists. It is not in their control. Sure many want to say and show much more than they do now. Other mechanisms are at work here. There are mechanisms of control over journalists. And not even over journalists but over editors and the editorial desks of newspapers and TV channels. The truth won't get through the way it should - when journalists just say: "I'm fed up. I'll tell what I see." This will never happen.

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