EKHO'S VENEDIKTOV ON SHIFTING MEDIA ENVIRONMENT

C O N F I D E N T I A L MOSCOW 002831 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/22/2018 TAGS: PHUM PGOV PREL RS GG SUBJECT: EKHO'S VENEDIKTOV ON SHIFTING MEDIA ENVIRONMENT REF: MOSCOW 2775 Classified By: Political M/C Alice G. Wells: Reasons 1.4 (b, d). ¶1. (C) On September 22, Ekho Moskvy Chief Editor Aleksey Venediktov elaborated on his brush with Putin (reftel), arguing that Prime Minister's August 29 attack on the radio station during a private gathering of editors and television producers in Sochi was a "demonstrative signal" that freedom of the media was a Putin prerogative and not part of President Medvedev's domain. There had been a noticeable "cooling" of the media environment, he argued, with more independent outlets such as Nezavisimaya Gazeta adopting a lower profile and REN-TV (with the notable exception of Marina Maksimova) curbing critical coverage. The cancellation of Vladimir Posner's political talk show, along with anti-corruption crusader Vladimir Solovyev's radio program, had further shrunk the media environment. With the country "encircled by enemies," he noted ironically, "the logic of military times" had taken precedence, meaning patriotism trumped news. Venediktov noted that the Russian news service had selectively edited the French Prime Minister's September 20 comments in Sochi critical of Russian actions in South Ossetia and Abkhazia (even though they appeared in full on Putin's website). ¶2. (C) Venediktov attributed Ekho's survival to the intervention of Presidential Administration Deputy Head Aleksey Gromov and White House Press Secretary Dmitry Peshkov, with former RAO UES Chubais also weighing in with Putin. While a criminal case was "on the shelf," ready to launch against the station or to justify Venediktov's removal by Gazprom (Ekho's owner),critics of the radio station had been dealt a setback by Putin's "seventeen minute" one-on-one with Venediktov. Having emerged in one piece and "with no obvious marks of distress," Venediktov said he had consciously refrained from publicizing the details of the conversation, and the resulting uncertainty was enough to prevent other sycophantic assaults on the station and its personnel. Noting that Yuliya Latynina was back on the air September 19 following her vacation, with an aggressive expose of a potential security services hit squad operating against ethnic Ingush in Moscow, Venediktov maintained that Putin had not targeted individual journalists, but had held the Ekho editor responsible for all the commentary aired on the station. ¶3. (C) According to Venediktov, Putin said that his friends liked to listen to Ekho and had told him that the station was important for Russia. "I agree," the Prime Minister reportedly stressed to Venediktov, "but in times of war you cannot support the enemy." In a subsequent meeting with Duma deputies, Putin reportedly told them that Ekho was good for Russia's reputation and that he was confident Venediktov understood what was acceptable. While stressing that he had defended Ekho's precarious position as a voice for opposition opinions, Venediktov noted that the Washington Post article on the station's plight, for which he had not been the original source, had rattled his employees. Two had been lured by former Ekho commentator Sergey Dorenko to the Russian Radio Service, which Venediktov believed was being built up as a potential Ekho rival. ¶4. (C) Venediktov warned the U.S. not to underestimate the black-white prism through which the Georgia conflict was viewed by the Russian leadership. Both Putin and Medvedev, he stressed, are convinced that the U.S. ordered the Georgian attack on Tskhinvali or - at a minimum - gave Saakashvili permission. Only the "red folders" prepared by the security services explain Putin's continued insistence on the presence of U.S. personnel in the fighting, the delivery of military supplies in humanitarian assistance, and the Fox news "conspiracy" that allegedly silenced the criticism by a young South Ossetian girl and her aunt against Saakashvili. ¶5. (C) Comment: Conservative members of the media, such as Aleksey Pushkov and Maksim Shevchenko, readily concede to us that there has been no improvement in the media environment. Pushkov, confident in American complicity in the onset of war, told us we should expect nothing less from a moderately authoritarian government. BEYRLE