Lyubimov creates an alliance

“Times are tough now, so we need to get organized. My rights are constantly violated, although I am a well-known journalist in the country. I can imagine how the rights of a journalist who works for a small newspaper are violated,” this is how the chairman of the board of directors of the VID television company Aleksandrov Lyubimov explained the essence of his new idea to a correspondent of the Vremya Novostei newspaper. The idea of ​​​​creating a new journalistic union, or, as Lyubimov himself says, “a large, strong, significant non-political organization,” was announced at the traditional meeting of the editors-in-chief of a number of central media, which takes place at ITAR-TASS with the head of the agency, Vitaly Ignatenko.

While the idea of ​​a new journalistic union is just in the air, there is interest in it from those who heard about it first. “I am very glad that most of the editors-in-chief of various media outlets with whom I spoke,” explains Mr. Lyubimov, “very accurately understand the dangers that await us in this difficult time, because there is a vacuum in such a fundamental issue, how freedom of speech threatens all journalists.”

They say that the idea of ​​a new journalistic organization comes not from the media, which are generally considered oppositional, but precisely from representatives of state mass media, since, as one of the heads of the federal media told the Vremya Novostey newspaper, “they cut down the forest - the chips fly: there is always there is a danger of ending up in the shoes of those who are not favored by the authorities today.”

Alexander Lyubimov says: “In any country, the authorities always have problems with the journalistic corporation. And that's okay. In this sense, we, as a corporation, must teach the state to respect us. And I am interested in the heads of state media precisely because together we can conduct a dialogue with the state quite competently and meaningfully.” The head of VID understands that the dialogue will be “complicated and very difficult,” so for now he is holding meetings and “infecting his colleagues with his idea.”

The editor-in-chief of Itogi magazine, Sergei Parkhomenko, assessed the chances of a potential union with restraint: “At the meeting with Ignatenko, we spoke in the most general sense. We just thought about the need to have an effective journalistic organization. This need is gradually maturing.”

Arina BORODINA