Posted on 06/08/2006 5:17:10 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
RUSSIA'S richest man, Roman Abramovich, is reported to have bought Russian business daily Kommersant, raising fears that one of the last bastions of press freedom in the country could be muted. Mr Abramovich is believed to have close ties to the Kremlin. At Moscow's request, he agreed last year to serve a second term as governor of the remote Russian arctic region of Chukotka.
Separately, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev announced he and a business partner had bought a significant share in another newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, to try to preserve its independence.
The two reported deals threw an uncomfortable spotlight on media freedom in Russia on the final day of a conference of world newspaper editors in Moscow.
Earlier this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin told the opening session of the World Newspaper Congress that Russia enjoyed freedom of the press and that the state was reducing its involvement in the sector.
But critics say the state has indirect control over most of the important news publications and direct ownership of all the national television networks and radio stations. Gazprom, the state-run gas monopoly, bought Izvestia, a leading daily newspaper, last year, and most of the others are owned by businessmen loyal to the Kremlin.
One notable exception is Kommersant, which has regularly published scandals and scoops that have reflected badly on the authorities, and it has faced a series of lawsuits as a result.
Media experts say the Kommersant deal would signal the end of its days as the most aggressively independent news outlet in the country.
Mr Abramovich, who also owns Britain's Chelsea soccer club, is one of the oligarchs, known in Russia as "wallets".
"If a 'wallet' buys something, that means the authorities need it," Aleksei Simonov, the head of the Glasnost Defence Foundation, a press freedom watchdog, said yesterday.
The business daily, which has a readership of about 100,000, was owned until recently by Boris Berezovsky, the exiled tycoon who was granted political asylum in Britain in 2003.
But he sold his share to Badri Patarkatsishvili, his Georgian business partner, in February to try to save the paper from Kremlin pressure.
Mr Patarkatsishvili is said to have sold it to Mr Abramovich's investment company, Millhouse, for $US120 million ($162 million), according to independent radio station Ekho Moskvy.
Pavel Filenkov, the commercial director of Kommersant, denied that the paper had been sold, but said there had been discussions about such a deal.
John Mann, a spokesman for Millhouse, said he could neither confirm nor deny the reports. No one at Mr Patarkatsishvili's offices was willing to comment.
Mr Gorbachev said he and Aleksandr Lebedev had bought a 49 per cent share in Novaya Gazeta, which has a reputation for good investigative journalism but suffers chronic financial problems.
The remaining 51 per cent is owned by the staff of the paper.
Mr Lebedev is a wealthy businessman, a member of parliament and a prominent anti-corruption crusader.
The deals came as a poll showed that 59 per cent of Russians believe the constitution should be changed to allow Mr Putin to run for a third term.
The law requires Mr Putin to step down when his second term ends in 2008 and he insists that is what he will do.
The survey by the Levada Centre polling organisation also found that only 11 per cent of those it interviewed were strongly against Mr Putin.
The 59 per cent who said they wanted Mr Putin to stay on, compared with 44 per cent in a poll by the same group in September last year.
How can this be, since according to the PPC there has never been a free press in Russia?
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