Duma to look into whether CNN abided by election coverage laws

The Duma’s Information Policy Committee is arranging a meeting to discuss whether Voice of America, Radio Liberty and CNN respected Russia’s laws on election coverage.

According to committee chairman Leonid Levin, the committee will also look into whether these media organizations had influenced the electoral process.

Levin did not specify the exact violations that were being look into. Russian election coverage law imposes a number of restrictions not only on registered media organizations (from the above-mentioned, only CNN has a media license in Russia), but also on ordinary publications reporting on the Internet. These restrictions affect coverage of pre-election campaigns and, in the days preceding elections, of data from public opinion polls. They are written to ensure that all candidates have equal access to the media.

The request to look into the reporting of the aforementioned American media organizations was made by the head of the Duma Committee for CIS Affairs Konstantin Zatulin. He said that Russia should respond to the proposal of US Senator Jin Shahin to look into the activities of the state-sponsored Russian television channel Russia Today.