| Deputies declared a crusade against foreign newspapers, magazines and films The State Duma Committee on Culture yesterday held parliamentary hearings on the topic of legislative regulation of the dissemination of cultural values and the formation of moral ideals in the media. It must be said that individual parliamentarians with enviable regularity try to morally strengthen the media and cinema, at the same time clearing them of sex, violence and foreign products. From everything that gives ratings to TV channels that have long been under the control of the state itself.
However, such initiatives have so far been rejected by the lower house. For this purpose, there were usually technical challenges to bills. But the deputies do not want to come to terms with the fact that today, as the final document adopted at the hearings states, “the media strive to solve mainly two problems - to entertain, maximally atrophying the intellectual and spiritual principles of the individual, and to inform, concentrating on negative information.”
Now, in upholding moral ideals in the media, Duma members place special hopes on the Public Chamber. For example, Pavel Pozhigailo, a member of the United Russia faction and deputy chairman of the Duma Committee on Information Policy, assigns a special role to it in his newly written bill “On Social Contracting.” According to the deputy’s plan, the Public Chamber should determine the values for propaganda in cinema, formulate a “social order” for a year and send it to some “federal authorized body”, which will then promote the decisions to life - that is, to cinemas and television.
At yesterday's parliamentary hearings, recommendations were adopted to the government, the Public Chamber, and state television channels, which were voiced by the head of the Duma Committee on Culture, Joseph Kobzon. In particular, the hearing participants recommend that authorized agencies take measures to limit the share of “foreign-produced” information on Russian television and radio channels to 15 percent. Parliamentarians also propose devoting at least 40% of broadcast time to cultural and educational television programs. 10% of this time should be allocated to children's programs, 10% to educational ones.
Original measures to support domestic producers were proposed by the director of the Institute of Public Design, one of the authors of the law on the Public Chamber, and editor-in-chief of the Expert magazine Valery Fadeev. “Now there is a very powerful expansion of foreign media, especially in terms of magazines. The expansion is so great that in the near future moral ideals will be formed by foreign companies, this will happen in the coming year,” Mr. Fadeev warned. “Foreign companies are already shaping moral ideals to a large extent.” According to Valery Fadeev, domestic media owners are in unequal conditions of competition with Western firms. To rectify the situation, the expert proposed abolishing VAT for domestic companies that produce their own newspapers and magazines, while maintaining this tax for companies with foreign capital. “This is a measure not to limit the market, but to support those who are ready to compete with Western expansion,” said Mr. Fadeev.
The head of the Federal Agency for Culture and Cinematography, Mikhail Shvydkoy, is more optimistic about the future of domestic media. He called Russian television “the best and most interesting in Europe.” And he noted that Russian-made programs and films are beginning to supplant foreign-produced programs.
Despite the official’s optimism, attacks from the audience on domestic television continued. When one of the speakers complained about Channel One TV presenter Andrei Malakhov, “promoting same-sex love on television,” the director of the department of external relations of the Russian Ministry of Culture, Andrei Vulf, came to the TV presenter’s defense. He said that freedom of creativity should not be forgotten, and people have the right to watch what they like. Compared to the speeches of other participants in the hearings, Mr. Wolf looked like the most important liberal.
Participants in the parliamentary hearings also recommended that the State Duma adopt a budget amendment by allocating 76 million rubles. for widespread coverage of the implementation of the “Program of Patriotic Education of Citizens of the Russian Federation for 2006-2010”, adopted by the government back in the summer. The program, in particular, involves the creation of a series of television programs and printed publications dedicated to the heroes of rich Russian history.
The hearing participants paid special attention to the sore subject of pornography. They recalled how in 1999 the Duma adopted the law “On the protection of morality and health of citizens and on strengthening control over the circulation of sexually explicit products,” but it was vetoed. The Duma Committee on Culture believes that it is necessary to return to the discussion of this issue, and also to legislate the concept of “pornography”, so that later it will be easier to punish for its distribution.
Senator McCotter Calls on America to Protect Russian Media
A resolution was introduced in the US House of Representatives calling on Russia to ensure the independence and freedom of the Russian media, as well as condemning the murder of American journalist Paul Klebnikov and 11 of his Russian colleagues in Moscow. RIA Novosti was informed about this by the Chamber’s International Relations Committee, where the document was received on Wednesday for further consideration. “The House of Representatives condemns the murder of American journalist Paul Klebnikov in Moscow on July 9, 2004, and the murders of other media representatives in the Russian Federation,” states the resolution introduced by Republican Congressman Thaddeus McCotter. The Chamber “calls on the Russian government to take appropriate actions to protect the independence and freedom of the Russian press and all visiting media representatives,” the document states. "The 2004 US State Department Report on Human Rights Practices states that pressure from the Russian government continues to weaken free speech, media independence, and media freedom, particularly among major television networks and regional media," the document says. Ksenia VERETENNIKOVA |
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