


	Remember me on this computer
	Forgot your password?
	Register

MT news

Russia – Holland 2009

On 19 June 2009 a bi-lingual, colour supplement to The Moscow Times will be published. The “Russia-Holland” supplement is an annual business publication, devoted to the partnership between Russian and Dutch companies.

This year the magazine is timed to coincide with the most glorious event in the cultural co-operation between the two countries for the last decade – the opening of Hermitage Amsterdam. The unique exhibition centre will be opened on the 19 June by Her Majesty Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands and the President of the Russian Federation, Dmitry Medvedev.



Saturday, July 04, 2009 Updated at 03 July 2009 20:27 Moscow Time.

The Moscow Times » Issue 2999 » News

Children drinking water after escaping from the Beslan school. NTV was the first Russian channel to show the fleeing children.

Russian TV Slow to Report the News

06 September 2004By Francesca Mereu / The Moscow TimesWhen the biggest terrorist attack since Sept. 11, 2001, was coming to a tragic end on Friday and the world was holding its breath about the North Ossetian children held hostage, the two main state-owned Russian television channels did not interrupt their regular programming.

Channel One and Rossia continued showing a film and a documentary while CNN, the BBC and EuroNews were broadcasting live pictures of half-naked and bloodied children running terrified through the streets of Beslan, thirstily grabbing water bottles.

CNN and BBC ran live footage taken by Rossia crews before it was shown in Russia. Russian viewers had to wait almost an hour before getting news from the two main state channels.

NTV, which is owned by state-controlled Gazprom, had just started its 1 p.m. news program with a live report by correspondent Ruslan Gusarov when the explosions at the school rang out behind him. NTV then switched to pre-recorded material, and the explosions were not explained before the broadcast ended with sports news.

After a commercial break, the NTV news team came back on at 1:30 p.m. and for more than three hours broadcast live from Beslan, although the journalists were cautious in what they said and live footage was stopped when troops started moving toward the school.

"It is ridiculous that the first pictures of what happened in Beslan were broadcast by international media, while our state channels did not stop their programming," said Anna Kachkayeva, a media analyst for Radio Liberty.

"The only chance for Russians to understand what was going on was Ekho Moskvy or the Internet. Our media were unable to fulfill their job," said Oleg Panfilov, director of the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations.

When Russian television failed to show what was happening in Beslan, Ekho Moskvy radio translated what CNN was reporting and read the news from Interfax.

By Saturday, all channels restored their usual programming and the events in Beslan were already old news.

The events in Beslan began to evolve at 1:03 p.m. with the explosions at the school. Channel One and Rossia began their reports only at 2 p.m., sticking to their regular news programming.

Channel One offered its viewers a 10-minute news broadcast and then switched to the "Women in Love" serial. On Rossia, the news continued for almost an hour, during which the reporter from Beslan repeated that the school was not being stormed by special forces and downplayed what was going on. NTV correspondent Dmitry Novikov, meanwhile, was describing the situation in Beslan as "total chaos" with the fighting dramatically increasing.

Rossia stopped its live broadcast to offer viewers the espionage serial "Krasnaya Kapella," or Red Chapel.

NTV, after its initial hesitation, provided the fullest coverage among the Russian channels.

"I can imagine what kind of hot arguments arose among the channel leadership: What to do? To show or not show the pictures coming in? To tell or not tell what is going on in Beslan," Irina Petrovskaya wrote in her media column in Izvestia on Saturday.

Professionalism, according to Petrovskaya, took over.

Even so, the reporters acknowledged being restricted in what they could say, and viewers were not offered any interpretation of what was happening.

NTV reporter Vadim Fefilov said on the air that he could not report on what was going on, "we cannot comment on the actions of the military."

NTV general director Vladimir Kulistikov was quoted in Kommersant on Saturday as saying journalists had to observe the law on media coverage. "We did not give unconfirmed and unofficial information on the air," he said.

The only outburst came during a glitch when the voice of an off-screen correspondent swearing emotionally punctured the live footage.

NTV's live footage was stopped at 1:54 p.m. when special forces started moving toward the school. The station apparently decided not to risk a repeat of the criticism it took after showing the special forces raid on the Dubrovka theater in October 2002.

NTV was accused of jeopardizing the operation to free the hostages, although it insisted the footage was shown with a delay. This was considered the main reason for NTV general director Boris Jordan losing his job in January 2003.

In their evening news programs Friday, both state channels showed dramatic footage but offered a single version of the events -- "only the terrorists were to be blamed for the tragic results."

"The way hostages and security forces behaved can be summed up in a single word: courage," anchor Pyotr Marchenko said on Channel One at 11.

On NTV at 7 p.m., Gusarov explained the difficulties of reporting earlier in the day when reporters were given little official information.

Then when interviewing Valery Andreyev, the Federal Security Service chief for North Ossetia, he rather astonishingly asked whether NTV journalists had "made any mistakes" or given any "unconfirmed information." Andreyev said he would have to look into it.

At 10 p.m., Gusarov, appearing emotionally and physically drained, told viewers that he had witnessed "a live-broadcast tragedy."

"All the journalists that are here with me had covered many terror attacks, but what we saw today has left all of us shocked. We cannot distance ourselves from what we saw. When we heard shooting, we could not understand for about 30 minutes what was going on. We hoped that the terrorists were bluffing. ... We hoped that the world would never see children being killed. But it happened," he said, his voice trembling.