Magazine "Kommersant Power"

08/31/1999, 00:00 TASS has been authorized for 95 years

On September 1, the Russian news agency ITAR-TASS, which, according to UNESCO classification, is one of the four supermonsters that have divided the whole world along with Reuters, Associated Press and France Press, has its anniversary. 95 years ago, on the first day of autumn 1904, the first official Russian agency began operating - the St. Petersburg Telegraph Agency. At that time it was just one of the subdivisions of the Ministry of Finance.

The telegraph has already been taken
The fact that it was the Ministry of Finance that came up with the sensible idea of acquiring its own news agency is not surprising. At that time, only one information structure operated in Russia - a division of the powerful German Wolf Agency. Naturally, only information that suited German interests went to and from Russia. This did not please the Russian authorities, who already felt the need to promptly tell the world what they needed.
The initiator of the creation of the Russian telegraph agency, Finance Minister Witte, wrote in a memo: “I know of cases when the Wolf agency refused to transmit telegrams that were very important for us, which, in its opinion, did not meet German interests.” Witte asked Nicholas II for 12 thousand rubles for the agency. The Emperor agreed.
At first, the agency created under the Ministry of Finance was supervised by two more departments - the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. But in 1909, by order of Stolypin, the St. Petersburg Telegraph Agency was transferred to the direct subordination of the government. Since then, it has changed its name four times, but its owner, the state, has never changed. Everyone was united in the desire to have power over information - the tsarist ministers, the Bolsheviks, and the democrats.

“In the future, skimping will not be allowed at all”
At the beginning of the century, when the telegraph agency had only a few dozen employees, life there moved slowly. And from time to time the problem of labor discipline arose. The agency's archives preserved correspondence between management and undisciplined employees, or rather female employees: “Dear Madam Evgenia Alexandrovna! Instead of the duty you missed (which you didn’t even bother to notify the Agency about), you deign to arrive tomorrow on emergency duty. In the future, skimping is by no means allowed.”
With the transition to wartime rule in 1914, telegrams were sent to all agency employees canceling vacations. But, apparently, not all employees reacted to this with due understanding. The authorities had to enter into correspondence again: “Dear Madam Varvara Alexandrovna! We consider it necessary to bring to your attention that, in view of the current events, work at the Agency cannot be of an urgent or non-urgent nature. Nowadays, all work is urgent. In view of this, we can only wish that you opportunities restored your health and came to work with renewed strength."
At the end of the 20s, TASS was quite competitive and well known abroad. Later, the general director of United Press, Karl Bickel, wrote: “In fact, the final mortal blow to the official gang from the propaganda of the Reuters and Havas cartel was dealt in 1933 by TASS and the Soviets.” In those years, the agency worked according to the most advanced, American way of presenting information: first came the first phrase - lead, then - details in descending order of importance. This made it possible to compete on equal terms with international agencies.
However, after the war, the American method of presenting information was abandoned. Then completely different tasks came to the fore - TASS turned from an information structure into a propaganda organ. A division into “white” and “red” TASS appeared. Entire departments were devoted exclusively to translations of reports from foreign agencies and excerpts from the foreign press; they all went to the TASS Bulletin of Foreign Official Information. From this heap of messages, under the strictest multi-level censorship, messages were then selected for Soviet newspapers.
For the same reason, collecting information inside the Soviet Union was extremely difficult. Almost every message from an agency correspondent sometimes required up to two dozen visas from various ministries and departments. In such conditions there was no need to talk about efficiency. The TASS leadership tried to convince the party authorities to reduce the number of inspections, leaving one inspection body - Glavlit.
It is not surprising that in the information wars with the West of that time, TASS kept losing. One day, the agency's management tried to quickly refute information that had spread in the West about a sharp increase in prices in the Soviet Union. But it took two months to agree on the article with the chairman of the state committee on prices. In the end, he completely refused to endorse the material, saying that for this he needed a special resolution of the Central Committee.
When covering official meetings and negotiations, TASS correspondents have always been at a disadvantage compared to their foreign colleagues. If after the visits they spoke in some detail about their contents, ours were only allowed to convey dry information about the time and place of the negotiations.
Not only TASS messages were subject to censorship, but also the building on Herzen Street (Bolshaya Nikitskaya). At first it was planned to build a real skyscraper - 26 floors. But one day the then Moscow leader Viktor Grishin visited the construction site. “He will close the Kremlin!” - he was indignant. As a result, instead of 26 floors, six were left. And the Tassovites began to call the disproportionate building a “TV.”

He who owns the information owns the world
This truth was understood literally in Soviet Russia and no money was spared on opening TASS offices around the world. Already in the 60s, the agency entered the top four in the world. Moreover, the budget of, for example, Associated Press was $53 million, and the budget of TASS was 9 million rubles. Now the ratio is practically the same, and the number of correspondent offices has been reduced from 100 to 70 due to lack of money. Nevertheless, even the correspondent network, cut by a third, allows ITAR-TASS not only to receive information from almost all corners of the earth, but also, more importantly, spread yours there. That is why the agency bears the proud title of being world-class.
Having this title is not only honorable, but in many cases it is also beneficial. For example, at important international events such as the Olympic Games, world agencies receive advantages in the number of accredited correspondents and priority rights to transmit information via satellite communications. Every day, through various communication channels, ITAR-TASS distributes 4,500 kilobytes of text information in six languages, which can fill about 100 newspaper pages.

"And now you will have to work lying down"
The recent history of TASS began literally the next day after the suppression of the August 1991 putsch. The then leadership of the agency was let down by their political intuition - they supported the State Emergency Committee. Therefore, Mikhail Gorbachev, who returned from Foros, summoned his press secretary Vitaly Ignatenko and said: “We must take the telegraph.”
Ignatenko, whose political intuition worked perfectly, did not object to heading TASS, but set one condition - to obtain Yeltsin’s consent. Yeltsin initially agreed, but then suddenly called Gorbachev back with a proposal to think about another candidate. A whole intrigue has unfolded around the position of TASS General Director.
The problem turned out to be that Yeltsin was informed that Ignatenko was not in Moscow on August 19. And this was then perhaps the main criterion. “And I actually was,” says Ignatenko, “and even together with Primakov I organized a press conference for Arkady Volsky.”
In the end, they figured out who was where, and Vitaly Ignatenko returned to TASS, where he worked as deputy general in 1975-1978. The new director managed to establish a democratic style of relations with his subordinates, and the elderly cleaners, who knew Ignatenko from Soviet times, address him on a first-name basis.
The next time they tried to take ITAR-TASS during the October events of 1993. The building turned out to be “successfully” located and was under fire from all the surrounding roofs. To destroy the snipers, fighters from Alpha chose the office of the general director. “And now you will have to work lying down!” - said the most important one in a black helmet, Ignatenko.
To distinguish them from the attackers, all agency employees were given T-shirts with the inscription: “I am a journalist, don’t shoot.” The T-shirts, of course, were prepared not for the putsch, but for the premiere of a film with that title. The script for it was written by Vitaly Ignatenko, and it was about the dangerous profession of a journalist in the West (Russians have not yet been shot at).
The general director himself, while shooting was being carried out from the windows, lay under the wide windowsill and gave orders over the phone - the agency was working. “Since then, I realized that it is absolutely impossible to work while lying down,” the TASS general director now admits.

CEO of Rita
The country's most important news agency changed its name four times, along with the country. The St. Petersburg Telegraph Agency - to the Russian Telegraph Agency (ROSTA), then - to the Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union and, finally, to ITAR-TASS.
Keeping the word TASS in the name turned out to be difficult. In 1992, when the Soviet Union practically no longer existed, and the country was swept by a wave of renaming, many attempted to assassinate him. But the management fought to the death - they fought not for words, but for a brand that is known throughout the world. They began calling Ignatenko to the Kremlin, twisting his button: “Old man, you’ll run into trouble! Boris Nikolayevich doesn’t know that yet.”
And then one day, after another boss, driving past TASS, saw on it the inscription “Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union,” Ignatenko was called and told: “Now you will be called RITA.” The general director experienced a real shock: “I imagined that now I would be called the general director of Rita. And explain to everyone that this is not even Margarita.”
Chance helped. As correspondents found out, in one of the European countries “rita” is called a woman of easy virtue. Ignatenko rushed to the Kremlin with the good news and said right from the door: “Do you want our materials to go under the heading ‘as reported by Rita’?”
This worked, and ITAR-TASS appeared. True, the double name had to be defended for some time - some officials, in democratic zeal, stubbornly called the agency "ITAR".

If someone is somewhere with us sometimes
One day, Politburo member Mikhail Suslov was editing a TASS article about the first Bulgarian cosmonaut (at that time all important messages passed through the Politburo). And then Suslov reads: Georgy Kakalov flew into space. “What kind of last name does an astronaut have?!” - the main party ideologist was indignant and replaced her. Good surname Ivanov. The next day, the family of the Bulgarian cosmonaut was surprised to learn that they now had a different surname.
“At the very first board meeting, I declared: there will be no more ‘white’ TASS, no more censorship,” recalls Ignatenko. But in 1993, the Ministry of Press came out in favor of the need for control over publications. Literally the next day, a bell rang in Ignatenko’s office: “I’m from Glavlit, I’m standing at the checkpoint, order a pass, please.” Ignatenko immediately called the security back: “Remember this man by sight and don’t let him get close.”
“Then I realized,” says Ignatenko, “that this structure has not gone away, it is simply sleeping and waiting in the wings.” However, internal censorship still exists in the agency. Otherwise, there would be no shortage of people wanting to put custom information on the tape. Most often, according to Ignatenko, they try to slip in a message that a search has been carried out in such and such a company. At the end of the year, petitioners always appear with a story: Vanya Pupkin is recognized by someone as the person of the year. Quite a few interested parties are asking that their photograph together with Yeltsin be distributed through communication channels.
According to Ignatenko, in his memory there was only one case of bias, when a note on an economic topic influenced the price of a popular product.
Only once a year do agency employees have complete or almost complete freedom to write whatever they want - on the first of April. One day on this day, ITAR-TASS reported that China had issued a decree allowing all those who had been members of the party for more than 60 years to have more than two children. People called and asked in surprise: is it really possible in China to have children even after 60 years in the party?
“The most interesting thing is that it didn’t even occur to anyone that this was a joke,” says Ignatenko. And he makes an unexpected conclusion: “And this once again confirms the level of trust in our information.”

SVETLANA SMETANINA

Magazine "Kommersant Power" No. 34 dated 08/31/1999, p. 44