Million for the publication of Ostrovsky

Journalists of the publication "What Smolensk is talking about" learned their price. Governor Alexei Ostrovsky pays them from the budget

A million from the budget was received by the GS Publishing Group, which produces the magazine "What Smolensk is talking about", in each issue of which the Governor of the Smolensk region Alexei Ostrovsky and his team members give a lengthy interview.

Formally, the distribution of money occurred during electronic trading. But in fact, we are talking about targeted financing of the PR of the regional administration, - opposition politicians and journalists who have learned the real price of freedom of speech in the Smolensk region say.

There are no independent journalists in Smolensk, the head of the Smolensk branch of the Yabloko party, Sergei Revenko , is sure:

- There are people who are engaged in the propaganda of the activities of the Governor of Ostrovsky - they say that everything is fine with us, and every day is getting better. I would call such journalists members of the PR team, consisting of satisfaction with the local administration. Although, after Ostrovsky came to power in April 2012, there was some opposition, which was headed by the regional branch of the Factory Russia, which oversees the "Smolensk People's Gazeta". Since reporters of this publication are paid from the party cash desk, they seek out flaws in the activities of the governor. This, of course, is better than nothing, but in this case the independent press is also not discussed. Not sure that an independent press will ever appear in Smolensk. The fact is that the regional administration has recently allocated a budget too much for positive coverage of the governor and his team.

Maxim Zakharov, editor -in -chief of the mentioned Smolensk People’s Newspaper, does not pretend to be called independent that he headed, he emphasizes that publications of the “Smolensk People’s Newspaper” provide pluralism of points of view:

- Our newspaper, like any media, can hardly be called independent, but we, unlike other Smolensk newspapers, give a different point of view on what is happening in the region. Therefore, the governor has repeatedly stated that our publication is false, and nevertheless, only one court lawsuit was filed against us, and the administration was attached not to the facts that we set out, but to their presentation, the intonation of the article, which was considered offensive.

The editor of the opposition governor of the newspaper experienced not only legal persecution for incorrect intonations against the head of the region. The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for the Smolensk region recently completed the investigation of the criminal case of the beating of Maxim Zakharov. The attack occurred on October 1, 2014. Customers of the attack were never found.

Smolensk publisher Vladimir Korenev was able to outline the whole circle of regional media, formally not controlled by the governor Alexei Ostrovsky, but immediately made a reservation that this kind of "independence" is not absolute. Vladimir Korenev himself publishes a magazine and understands that he leads journalists to someone's content:

-There are groups of publications that serve the specific interests of business structures or parties. But the majority is controlled by the governor, except for the magazine "Smolensk" and "Smolensk People's Newspaper". Nobody finances our magazine, I am the publisher, owner and editor in one person.

Vladimir Korenev notes that the flow of advertising in print media has decreased sharply, but the pressure from the authorities - regional and urban ones increased:

- For sixteen years in a row, the Department of Education Smolensk wrote out our magazine for schools, since we publish a lot of local history materials. But our publication suddenly did not like the city officials, and under the pretext of the lack of funds, our publication did not receive an indication. But I signed an agreement with the education department for a year, and several numbers issued this year have already dispersed on educational institutions. This is only one of many examples of non -compliance with the authorities of previously reached agreements. This hits very much according to our publication, which is at full self -sufficiency.

Financial problems came not only to the Autonomous Journal of Smolensk, but also to the largest media holding of the Smolensk region-"Media to the TM group." A year ago, the holding united about a dozen newspapers and magazines, as well as the Russian Radio in Smolensk and Ren-Smolensk. Now the owner, the deputy of the City Council , Yuri Mikhailov , actively sells the holding’s assets, and employees who have not received a salary for a long time are dismissed. The only hope of the remaining employees is the possible interest from entrepreneurs from Desnogorsk, where the Smolensk NPP is located.

Another way is to go to work for the regional administration. There are no problems with financing - about 40 million rubles are planned to advertise the governor’s team in the region’s budget for 2015. Considering that this was not enough, the authorities declared an auction in the amount of more than a million rubles for "the provision of the services of a periodic print publication on the information support of the implementation of state policy in various fields of activity in the Smolensk region." Moreover, the conditions of the auction are seemed to be specially written for the Smolensk edition - the magazine "What Smolensk is talking about." But the Smolensk authorities own the Smolenskaya Gazeta weekly, which extends at a circulation of 8 thousand copies absolutely free. There is no advertisement there, therefore, the newspaper is published exclusively with the money of taxpayers.

Despite such a powerful information support for the activities of the Smolensk authorities, the study of the agency of political and economic communications showed that the Smolensk governor Alexei Ostrovsky, in a degree of influence, is only in 63th place among the heads of Russian regions.