The Institute of Regional Media has been in a state of stagnation for the last three years: the state of the local press is not directly related to the economic situation of the region, and criticism of the authorities is minimal, experts from CIRCON found out, having prepared an analytical report for the Media Standard Foundation and the Civil Initiatives Committee (CIC) of Alexei Kudrin.

The group with the highest rating included only 17 regions, including Moscow and the region, St. Petersburg, Tatarstan, the Khanty-Mansiysk and Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrugs – this group includes many donor regions. Media expenditures per capita in such regions are usually significantly higher than the national median – 156 rubles, and in Moscow – about 1,000 rubles per year, in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug even almost 5,000 rubles. But, for example, Perm Krai, which recently dropped out of the list of donors, became the leader of the anti-rating – only 13 rubles per capita. Crimea was in the weakest group. The gap between the leaders and outsiders is only widening, the authors of the study found.

The development of the media is limited by strong state regulation and significant financial dependence on local authorities: revenues from them in 2015-2016 were comparable to revenues from advertising, which is expected to decrease in 2017. Budgetary financing goes either to regionally owned media or to unconditionally loyal ones, but there are also many businesses among advertisers that are somehow connected to or dependent on local authorities; it is extremely difficult for opposition media to find funding. In many regions, the practice of so-called information support agreements is still alive, which imply a positive interpretation of news, but in fact prohibit criticism of the governor.

It is not surprising that many regional media outlets cannot afford to criticize the government. As another study by Mediastandard and KGI shows – the 2016 Criticality Index (content analysis of more than 70,000 materials in 1,345 publications), only 16% of regional media outlets at least sometimes criticize the work of their governor. In 19 regions, not a single media outlet published a single critical text during the study, and in another 14, criticism was minimal – mainly in the regions of the Far East, the Volga region, and the North Caucasus, including Chechnya, as well as the Moscow region. The level of criticism is higher than 50% only in Karelia and the Sverdlovsk region. And most of the criticism is the personal position of the journalist, not based on the opinions of experts, opinion polls, or objective indicators of the governor’s work.

Why criticize the governor?