The Russian Press in the Post-Soviet Era: a case study of Izvestia

Abstract

The progress of the Russian press in the late Soviet and post-Soviet eras can be described (with apologies to Vladimir Lenin) as "two steps forward, one step back". The flowering of glasnost (openness) under Mikhail Gorbachev led to a "golden age" of Soviet journalism, including an explosion of new publications and a lifting of nearly all state restrictions on journalists' professional activities. However, the collapse of the USSR and the onset of material crisis in 1991/92 quickly produced a winnowing of the press and a retrenchment on the part of surviving publications. At the same time, powerful new forces--especially oligarchs and regional and leaders--arose to vie with the state for influence over post-Soviet media. This paper explores the trajectory of one of the leading newspapers of the Soviet and post-Soviet period, Izvestia , in the light of these broader trends. While Izvestia emerged from the ashes of Soviet communism with formal control over its material plant and journalistic collective, it was soon subjected to a tug-of-war between powerful actors determined to control its destiny--first the communist-dominated Duma (parliament), and then large corporations and business oligarchs. The struggle led, in 1997, to the dismissal of the paper's editor, Oleg Golembiovsky, and the departure of many staff to form Novye Izvestia ( New Izvestia )--though this publication, too, was also unwilling or unable to avoid the temptations of a close alliance with one of the leading oligarchs, Boris Berezovsky. In the conclusion, the findings are placed in the broader comparative context of Russian and (briefly) global media in transition, based on the author's research into the process of media liberalization and transition worldwide.