How to protect the national press?

From September 13 to 16, 2018, the All -Russian Conference “National Press Today” was held in Elista. The conference was held for the second time and gathered chief editors and journalists of regional and local publications from 14 regions of Russia. Two State Duma deputies, a member of the Presidential Council for Interethnic Policy and I arrived as honored guests at the conference.

The peoples of Russia speak more than 150 languages. However, in 2017, the media in our country were produced only in 60 languages ​​of the peoples of the Russian Federation. The total signature circulation of the national media amounted to 130 thousand copies. and decreased compared to 2014 by 3.8 times. The number of newspapers with a circulation of more than 1 thousand copies. amounted to 38 and decreased for the same period three times. There are only five editions with a circulation of more than 4 thousand copies, or less than three years ago, six times.

The head of Kalmykia, Alexei Maratovich Orlov, said that all district newspapers managed to preserve in Kalmykia. He called for a conference on the problems of the national press annual and hold it in Elista, promising the conference his support.

The State Duma deputy from Tatarstan I. I. Gilmutdinov said that the training of personnel for the national press was destroyed, recognized the need for a state support system, urged to look for options, proposed some alternative sales. He urged not to politicize the issue of learning his native language, expressed the opinion that the amendment adopted in the summer of 2018 on the voluntariness of learning their native language allowed parents to ensure a voluntary study by children of their language.

The chairman of the Union of Journalists O. G. Solovyov said that in the Union of Journalists there is 70 thousand members. The Union helped to pull out journalists from the police on September 9, achieved a discount for journalists to the Black Sea sanatoriums, the adoption of the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation on the assignment of the title “Honored Journalist of Russia”.

The State Duma deputy from Kalmykia talked about how in 2011 the State Duma adopted a law on the ban on substances from which a narcotic substance can be made.

The chairman of the Union of Journalists of Dagestan A. A. Kamaev spoke about how in the 1960s there was a discussion about whether the peoples of Dagestan would remain or all of them will merge into the single people of the Dagestanis, which would speak Russian.

Chinese colleagues also showed interest in Russian Kalmyks, where people closely related to Kalmyks live. The head of the Moscow Bureau of the Sinhua news agency said that the agency publishes materials around the clock in nine languages, including In Russian. "Sinhua" signed an agreement with the Union of Journalists of Kalmykia.

I also spoke at the conference. In my speech, I expressed the following sentences.
Pay attention to electronic amateur journalism. The indicator of such journalism is Wikipedia. For example, Ingush Wikipedia takes 258th place; It contains 781 article. Wikipedia in the Kalmyk language takes 214th place in the world and has 2074 articles. Udmurt Wikipedia takes 179th place; It contains 4506 articles. Tatar Wikipedia is in 69th place; It already has 80183 articles. Russian Wikipedia is in seventh place in the world and has 1.496 million articles. However, there is still no Avar, Dargin, Nogai, Cherkess, Karachai Wikipedia.

There is no journalism in unrecognized languages; There are no newspapers in the Pomeranian dialect, the language of Barabinsky or Chate Tatars.

A variable, including grant, support for journalism in the language of peoples in whom the writing was created during the life of the current generation is needed. For example, only in 2007 a writing arose in the Ahvakh language (Ahkhvites - one of the peoples of Dagestan).

In order for people to read the information resource in the national language, the research of scientists is needed-but what are people who speak mainly in Russian are ready to read in their native language.

I noted that language exists and develops only when it exists in seven different fields:
- educational;
-officially business;
- family;
- household;
- cultural;
- scientific;
- journalistic.
The presence of a language in less than four of these spheres leads to its degradation and loss.

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