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Transformation

Igor Yakovenko: Why is the "General Gazeta" impossible today

Update: 06/22/2015 (09:11)

From the site "Kasparov.ru".

! Spelling and stylistics of the author are preserved

Kafka has a story about how a person, waking up, finds himself in the body of a huge insect extremely unsympathetic appearance. The Russian reality of the last one and a half decades gives a long gallery of examples of such transformations. Not only people turn, but also entire teams, for example, entire media.
Kafkian transformation cannot be noticed. A person is very different from the insect, even if the insect growth is per person. The limbs are more than one and a half times, the chitin carapace and in general ... in a word, it is impossible to confuse. In the case of "turning" the media is a little more complicated. The name is the same. The logo is the same. The paper is the same if it is a newspaper or a magazine. Broadcasts at the same frequency if we are talking about a television or radio channel.
You can, of course, be distinguished by content. Actually, this is the main criterion for the "transformation" of the media. So they usually do it. But there is a lot of subjective. And, in addition, the question often arises: but this media, it has already turned, or even in the process? It is already an "insect", or still "human", although it has already been covered in some places a chitin carapace?
There is one criterion that could be used until the middle of the zero when, in the event of some special trouble, the Russian media united and made a special release of the legendary General Newspaper, the first number of which was released in 1991 by those publications that were closed by the GKChP. Then Yegor Yakovlev took this newspaper under his wing and began to release it as an ordinary weekly. But in the case of a common threat under the wing of the “general”, tens and hundreds of media gathered, regardless of political preferences and relationships between editions and editors, which were always, to put it mildly, difficult. And on the pages of the "general" the logos of those media that supported this action of journalistic solidarity were printed. It’s like at a rally where numbers are important: one hundred people have come, this is one, one hundred thousand, completely different.
For comparison, I will describe two events: special issue No. 5 of the General Newspaper dated 02.16.2000, and special issue of 10/9/2006, which was already a different name, the Union of Journalists. The fact is that by that time the “common newspaper” was sold to the entrepreneur Vyacheslav Leibman, who bought it for the only purpose: to disperse the team and close the newspaper, which was done immediately after the purchase in the same 2002.
So, February 2000. The special issue of the "General Newspaper" is dedicated to the fate of Andrei Babitsky, who then worked as a correspondent of Radio "Freedom" in Grozny, covered the events of the 2nd Chechen. On January 23, 2000, Babitsky was detained by the Chechen police and concluded in a pre -trial detention center, after which the news of him ceased to reach, and the events that happened to him no longer happened to anyone, nor in the Soviet, nor in Russian, and, apparently, in world history.
Having sat for 10 days in the Chechen pre-trial detention center, a Russian citizen Babitsky was exchanged by the Russian authorities for 3 captured Russian soldiers and was transferred to a certain Uskhodzhaev, whom they, the Russian authorities called the field commander. 4 days after the executive branch of the Russian authorities gave the citizen of Babitsky it is not clear who, the other branch, the prosecutor’s office, publicly called a citizen of Babitsky for interrogation, saying that if he would be arrested in case of failure to appear.
All this time, the journalistic community (and such in those days was still present, although in a rather undeveloped form) constantly achieved from the power of an articulate response about the fate of the colleague. The authorities lied to dull, continuously and on different voices. In these days, in an interview with his favorite Andrei Kolesnikov, he said that “Babitsky is a traitor”, that he “worked for bandits”, is not worthy of being a Russian citizen, and also said that “to shoot (Babitsky) is pointless, but to receive for such ... five Russian soldiers is quite acceptable.” After that, on February 24, the militants took Babitsky to Makhachkala and released, giving him a farewell passport in the name of Azerbaijani Musaev. His valiant bodies were immediately accepted with this fake, after which he was convicted of using fake documents.
The incident with Babitsky was so wild and monstrous that at the moment when the fate of the journalist was still unknown, and there were doubts whether he was alive, or he could still be saved, it was decided to make a special issue of a “common newspaper”. They did quickly, hurried, because they perceived this issue as a form of pressure on power, hoping to influence the fate of a colleague. Therefore, only federal media were collected. Here is their list in alphabetical order:
“Version: Top Secret”, “Evening Moscow”, “Evening Club”, “Journalist”, “Hook”, “Izvestia”, “Results”, “Index. Dossier for censorship”, “Internyus”, “Culture”, “Komsomolskaya Pravda”, “Peasant Vedomosti”, “Peasant”, “Literary Newspaper”, “Metro”, “Moscow Pravda”, “Moskovskaya Pravda, Moscow News, Moscow Komsomolets, New Time, New Gazeta, NTV, General Newspaper, Profile, Radio Liberty, Today, Interlocutor, Soviet Russia, Sovetskaya Kalmykia-See, Tribune, Building Gazeta, Glass Protection Fund.
So far, we note for memory the presence of NTV, Komsomolskaya Pravda, Literary, Culture and MK. They are still in this list of solidarity. In the next they will no longer be. The chitin shell will not let. And two words about the authors who said their word in defense of Babitsky on the pages of the special issue of the "common" in the heading I blame. Only names, through a comma: Alexey Simonov, Grigory Baklanov, Evgeny Yevtushenko, Alexei German, Alexander Volodin, Yuri Karyakin, Boris Vasiliev, Mikhail Fedotov, Andrey Cherkizov.
And the authors of articles outside of any section: Julia Kalinina, Masha Gessen and Alexei Pankin - the same thing that is now on the pages of KP competes with Skyubeda and Tukhanina in patriotism and obscurantism.
As a result of that story, Babitsky survived, relatively healthy, and safely lived until the events of 2014, in which he supported the annexation of Crimea. But this is the story of another transformation.
Six years have passed. On October 7, 2006, Anna Politkovskaya was killed at the entrance of her house. According to the calculations of the publicity protection fund, it was the 211st Russian journalist who was killed from 1992 to 2006. On average, 15 journalists per year. This long martyrologist has its own tragedy for each name. But the Politkovskaya tragedy stood out in this series of its simple and distinct symbolism. Living Anna was a symbol of fearlessness and unbending fidelity of the profession. Dead - a direct accusation of the Russian authorities, and first of all, to Putin, who did not fail to give out another imperishable about the fact that during her life she did not harm him very much with her publications, but she did significant harm to her death.
The murder of Politkovskaya has become a tragedy of a planetary scale. On the squares of Helsinki and Rome, London and Warsaw, Paris and Kyiv, thousands of people gathered to honor Anna's memory. The first stripes of all the largest newspapers in the world were devoted to this event. Letters of condolences to the relatives and friends of Politkovskaya were sent by the heads of state and political leaders.
2006. The "transformation" of Russian society has almost taken place. NTV and Yukos were eaten, the political and regional field was cleaned to brilliance. The Duma is no longer a “no place”, however, like the courts, the Federation Council and television. Through the chitin shell, the reflection of the human woman flickers only in places. Mostly in the regions and a little in the printed press, plus the gaining resources on the Internet.
The release of the newspaper of journalistic solidarity was a big question. Firstly, it is not clear what to release: "General newspaper" sold and eliminated. The second, and the main question: is it at all, solidarity? I had to overcome the justified skepticism of colleagues and make a special issue called "Union of Journalists." One hundred thousand copies. The layout and proofing of Novaya Gazeta, were dropped on paper and printing: “Internyus”, Harry Kasparov and the Union of Russian Journalists.
We collected logos with a whole group in the SDR. This was a matter of honor. We received 309 logos from all over the country, including the press of near and far abroad. The bulk is regional newspapers and local TV and radio. From the federal media: Izvestia (the then chief editor with Vladimir Mamontov was not yet fully covered by the chitin), “Echo of Moscow” (before the operation “Assistant” and the completion of the general mutation AAB for another 8 years), as well as new “newspaper” (then on paper), “Brani” and “Hedgehog” (then not yet blocked). Well, of course, a native to Anna "New Gazeta".
This is all! Six federal media throughout the country ... Against the backdrop of the grandiose solidarity of the world community and a storm of protest abroad, this slightly warm reaction of the Russian media became a sentence. The "transformation" was already close to the end.
Now, let's conduct a mental experiment. Today, in 2015, what are the chances of making a special issue of a “common newspaper”? What are the chances to at least somehow materialize this damn journalistic solidarity? The "transformation" ended, or is there something that can break the chitonic armor from the inside?
Who can become the initiator and motor of the joint stock of solidarity? The Union of Journalists of Russia is now able to hold the shares of solidarity solely on the preservation of its own property. The voice of his chairman Bogdanov sounds either in unison with the authorities or in a kitchen Swara with the chairman of the Moscow Union, Pavel Gusev, and the essence of Swara is again the property conflicts of the leadership of the two unions (real estate plus the right to earn on issuing international cards), which have nothing to do with journalists and journalism.
Even if you imagine that the motor and initiator were found, who will be a participant in the joint of solidarity? Separate journalists in the amount of a pair of thousands of freely soaring units may be found. But journalism can make you reckon with itself only if organizations become a mouthpiece: unions and the media. Only then does the authorities hear something.
The inability to release a “common newspaper” today in the form in which it could be released in 1991, 2000, and even in 2006, this is one of the obvious symptoms of the fact that the “transformation” process is almost complete. The chitin shell completely covers the entire media space, leaving only tiny areas for air flow. There is no need to be deceived: this is not a sign of the incompleteness of "transformation", but only characteristic of insects of a spare, through which the air enters the trachea of ​​a bug or cockroach. They are also God's creatures, you need to breathe ...

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The anatomy and the story of each individual “transformation” are unique, occur according to different scenarios, whether it is the media, such as “KP” or “literature”, or individual characters, like Norkin or Dmitry Kiselev. The path to "insert" is different for everyone and requires a separate analysis and description. But behind these individual trajectories, a general process is hidden, the analysis of which cannot be reduced to banal: "The damned regime was crushed" or "all sold."
Apparently, the measurement with which we approach society is extremely insufficient to understand it. Attempts to reflect in the concepts: "democracy - dictatorship" are not just insufficient, but sometimes they do not catch the essence of the process. Movement on the scale: "Progress-Degradation" may generally not at some stage coincide with the vector towards more or less democracy, and in this case more or less freedom of speech. This is to the question of why, having received a huge piece of freedom of speech from Gorbachev-Eltsin, the journalists ordered him so mediocre.
How is the "transformation" we see. If we understand whether the reverse process is possible, and most importantly, how to start it, we can break the chitin carapace and begin to breathe in the air through the lungs with air, and not be content with the musty that enters the trachea through the spare.