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After the NTV affair everything was not so dramatic. We split, lost friends, found ourselves on different sides of the barricade. There were deep disappointments, serious differences, human dramas, etc. The whole story of NTV was a drama, both personal and public. Everything that followed it was perceived as a farce. Betrayal is good, in a way, because it can be committed only once; one person cannot betray another over and over again. Really? Yes. You now know the real worth of it, I mean the drama, a human, professional and public drama. In the case of NTV, we realized that we were being destroyed, but were somehow prepared for it. We – I am speaking on behalf of some journalists, not shareholders or participants in the political games – started leaving, not going to Berezovsky, but somewhere we could work. There was only one place to go to – TV-6. Later, when it was closed down, too, we looked for another place to work with the same team. However, this time the situation was not so dramatic. It was nothing new, but the destruction of our team continued. "There is little likelihood that the owners of TVS will reach agreement with one another" A new organization has been formed – TVS. They are the journalists, the capital of liberal entrepreneurs plus Media-socium. How will you exist and work in this tangle of three heads? How will it operate? What role will each one play? How does a free person breathe in this tangle? Each person should do his or her job. I work with the producer Alexander Levin, whom I began the Puppets programme with. He is one of my friends and a member of the team whom I plan to work with in the future. Alexander Levin is a man who has shown his human qualities and skill time and again. As for the relations bewteen Primakov and Volsky on the one hand, and Oleg Kiselyov and oligarchs, on the other, this is something that I can't influence, and I try not to think about it much. Are you not interested in the policy of the liberal oligarchs and political commissars? The thinking is that there should not be just one owner. Because when there is only one boss, as it was with Gusinsky or Berezovsky, or the government, there is the risk of an "information policy". Gusinsky, Berezovsky and the Kremlin were different cases, but there was the threat that journalists would begin serving purely financial and political interests. But when there are many owners (there are about ten in our case), there is a guarantee of independence. There is little possibility that Deripaska, Chubais, Abramovich, Kiselyov, Primakov, etc. will agree on one policy, and that there will be strict rules allowing to do one thing and forbidding to do another. This is why the present setup seems very stable. These are general reflections. As for concrete matters, we have no grounds to speak about any interference or pressure so far. I personally can't complain about this. Two questions about betrayal Doesn't your team think that they slightly "offended" Berezovsky? No, I don't see any reason to think that. But he has appealed to a court… Berezovsky is absolutely right, as far as the legal aspect of the matter is concerned. The TV Company MNVK (Moscow Independent Broadcasting Company) was liquidated unlawfully, and he has every right to demand that his property be returned to him. Naturally, I am on his side. And I personally am not guilty of any betrayal. We all worked for his TV channel, increased its financial assets and contributed to Berezovsky, a person under criminal investigation, becoming a political figure. It so happened that the interests of freedom of speech and democracy intertwined in a paradoxical manner with the business interests of Gusinsky, Berezovsky and some financial groups. The political aspect of the problem was quite clear: the government wished to destroy the media empires of Gusinsky and Berezovsky. They were deprived of property, pushed to the wayside, and their political influence was restricted. And we were used as pawns in the game. And couldn't you do anything? We did what we could and should do – continued airing our programmes, the news, etc. I think that claims and reproaches can only be addressed to definite persons. I cannot say that we served any information interests of Berezovsky. We worked on his channel for the whole of society. As to a feeling of guilt for taking part in the tender… Well, in my view, we were right to have taken part. The purely ethical position would have been this: you all are scoundrels, and we don't want to play your game according to your rules. N0? In general that is right. Well, in that case I should have applied for an Israeli or American passport and left the country. That would have been the most ethical thing to do. I would not have taken part in these games and would have remained morally pure. But we are not only obligated to Berezovsky or Gusinsky, or the other oligarchs, but also to the people. And they number several million. Their political position is not reflected in the mass media. Besides, there are millions of people who do not realize that they need us. I feel obligated to work for them. I did not feel obligated to the sources of financing. I worked for the people who saw and heard me on the screen, and received a wage for my efforts. The millions of people who were interested in what I was doing were much more important for me. Such were my obligations. As for Berezovsky, we worked till the very end, we did not betray him or change our position, despite any pressure. I am speaking of those who have not switched over to other channels, including the government-owned one, for a higher wage. We stood our ground to the very end. On January 11, according to the court ruling, our TV channel was blacked out. Then we were faced with a simple choice: either to refuse to take part in the tender, which would have meant that we would have had to abandon everything and leave, or to do our job outside the TV network. There is another question about betrayal. Gusinsky has sold his controlling block of shares to different companies. Nothing has been said about freedom of the press. Don't you regard yourselves betrayed and used? No. We have to separate the aesthetics, freedom of speech and the interests of business, although they are intertwined. In this case Gusinsky has simply disposed of his property as he deemed fit. One has the right to dispose of one's flat, car, or anything else as one pleases. The shares Gusinsky sold had no political influence. He acted absolutely correctly. His money, be it in the publishing business or NTV, or elsewhere, had no influence on information policy. And he had the right to place it anywhere, for instance, to invest in the creation of a Russian TV station abroad, This is a good idea, may God help him… Had only one person left NTV, he (she) would have been right So did it pay to leave NTV? Can NTV be compared to TVS? At present we cannot compare anything to TVS, because we have just started working. NTV has existed for many years and has augmented its worth. We have played a part in that. NTV continues to work and is doing well in all respects. But the situation has changed principally. Previously, there were the federal channels and NTV. And everybody knew that in critical moments it would be better to view NTV, which would tell the truth about Chechnya, corruption in the Kremlin, etc. According to the latest data, the Vremya programme is the leader among all news broadcasts. NTV has become one of the federal channels. It is quite good, and has highly-skilled professionals doing the news programmes. I won't discuss other programmes – some are better, others are worse. On the whole, the channel is working quite well. But I repeat, the NTV affair has changed the overall picture. Previously, there were government-owned mass media while NTV worked quite separately. Now the latter is much closer to the former. We are in a more difficult situation. Some of our colleagues have left for other channels. TV is not only the journalists on the screen. There are editors, cameramen, sound engineers, light technicians, and many others. Quite a few people have quit. It's only natural. Nobody has the right to demand that people display heroism and sit without pay for half a year. Of course, we have been scattered, our opportunities to broadcast to the regions have diminished, and many of our indices have fallen. Nothing can be done about that. When people were leaving NTV, it was important to see who quit and who remained. There was a kind of competition of names. But then we understood that, as Sveta Sorokina said, the main issue was salvation and dignity, whereas rating and popularity were of no importance. Even if all the people had remained on the NTV channel, when Jordan came to head it, and only one or two persons had left, these one or two would have been right, in my view. It's not like in sport: the loser – the winner. It was necessary to part with NTV. As time passes, I see it ever more clearly. As Alim Yusupov said to Oleg Dobrodeyev on April 14, 2001, there were things more important than one's profession. Those who understand this are my fellow-thinkers. His words could be interpreted in another way: power, money and politics are more important. What he had in mind was not power or money. When we were enticed to stay on NTV, you may rest assured that we were offered good money. We mean certain moral principles. In the spring of last year each person acted and behaved as he or she saw fit. When you are raped you are not to blame. It's a terrible misfortune. But it's a shame when you are raped and you pretend it's love. And you ask money for telling all and sundry that it was love. This was why there was nothing shameful in our departure from NTV. We were right in quitting. More than just colleagues There was the "Itogo" ("To Sum it up") programme on TV-6. And now there is another programme – "Pomekhi v efire" ("Interference on the Air") on TVS. Why did you change the programme? I simply started a new programme, and it has nothing to do with being on a different channel. We devised it before the New Year and announced the termination of the Itogo programme on January 9. And on January 11, the day of recording the last programme, the court ruling came on the liquidation of TV-6 channel. It was a coincidence. As for the new programme, we were simply fed up with working on one and the same programme for so long. And is the team almost the same? Almost. True, some people have left for objective and subjective reasons. Several new persons have come. But on the whole, the backbone remained. What about the news programmes on TVS. Are they original, independent and different from those on the other channels? It depends on the newscaster and the reaction of the audience. Take Mikhail Osokin, for example. When he anchors a news programme one may rest assured that no views or even pressure "from above" will influence the order of news items or change its substance. Viewers will see and hear the news as we give it to him. Mikhail Osokin is a self-sufficient person, absolutely independent from any "instructions from above". Another person might waver… Do you mean somebody on your channel? I say it as a general observation. This is a question of human professional dignity. I don't divide journalists into those working on our channel and those on other channels. You will not hear from me that our journalists are the best and others are bad. But quite a few people on our channel have demonstrated their firm ethical principles and high professionalism during the past two years. Is there any meaningful difference between the titles TV-6 and TVS? Why did you replace the figure with a letter? I don't know. Ask those who did it. And who changed it? Our bosses. But this is absolutely unimportant. What does the letter 'S' mean? When it was necessary to have our company urgently registered, someone came up with the name Spektr (Spectrum). Nobody knew what our wise bosses had in mind. Thank God, the name has been reduced to just one letter – S. TVS is a good abbreviation. But, it is of no importance to me. The main thing is how we work. If we work well and make no blunders, people will like us, and our audience will grow as time goes by. I mind my own business. If something outrageous, politically and ethically, happens on our channel and I feel that my stay there is incompatible with it, I shall leave. Only an idiot can like everything. But everyone does his job. There are dozens of projects on our TV channel. Some of them I like, others I don't. In short, what is the TVS channel? The people I meet in the rooms, studios and corridors are those who have shown their human and professional decency. They have behaved as I thought proper. I understand many things just as they are understood by my colleagues – Sveta Sorokina, Liza Listova, Alim Yusupov, Vladimir Kara-Murza, Ashot Nasibov, Alexei Kondulukov, and others; we are like–minded people. We have a similar attitude to what's good and what's bad, what's permissible and what's not. And we needn't talk about all that, we simply feel it. After everything that happened at NTV we have become closer to each other. Previously we were simply a group of colleagues working on the same NTV channel, then the demarcation process began. Some good professionals stayed with us, others – also good professionals – left. Each had their own reason. I have my personal opinion of each person and I am not going to force it on anybody. But those who have acted just as I have are more than just colleagues of mine. The people I like – that's TVS to me. |
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