The Izvestia newspaper will have a new editor-in-chief on Tuesday. According to the Kommersant newspaper, Vladimir Mamontov, editor-in-chief of Komsomolskaya Pravda, will take this post instead of Vladimir Borodin.

Nikolai Senkevich, the general director of the Gazprom-Media company, which bought Izvestia in early June 2005, told Kommersant that there is no political background to the change of editor-in-chief and the editorial policy of Izvestia will remain the same.

According to Senkevich, “Vladimir Borodin is a brilliant journalist, he has done a lot for the newspaper, but shareholders believe that in order to lead the newspaper out of the economic and social crisis, this is not enough, the editorial staff needs to be strengthened.”

The head of Gazprom Media said that Borodin has been offered the position of first deputy editor-in-chief, but he has not yet given an answer.

Vladimir Borodin became editor-in-chief of Izvestia in September 2004 instead of Raf Shakirov. Shakirov resigned after the newspaper published on September 4 photographs of victims of the school storming in Beslan, which the management of the ProfMedia holding, which then owned Izvestia, recognized as not corresponding to the format of the publication.

An informed source familiar with the situation around Izvestia told Kommersant that the candidacy of Vladimir Mamontov had already been considered twice for the position of editor-in-chief of the newspaper, both before the appointment of Raf Shakirov and after his resignation.

The head of Izvestia will be the editor-in-chief of KP