The Russian United Democratic Party YABLOKO expresses
its deep concern with the situation around the Radio Liberty
Russian Service. Mass dismissal of the key journalists of
the Moscow Bureau endangers the very existence of Radio Liberty
as an objective and high-quality media.
The official version about transfer to the new digital technologies
and abolishing of broadcasting on the medium waves is beyond
any criticism. If this were the real reason, then the Radio
Liberty management would not have fired in the first ranks
the staff of the Radio Liberty web-site, which made the Radio
Liberty web-site one of the most respected and quoted political
resources of the Russian segment of the Internet.
Apparently, this demonstrates a bureaucratic error turning
into a political error. Bureaucrats from mass media were solving
their narrow tasks and did not take into account the political
consequences, which are as follows: the Russian audience is
deprived of the source of information they have trusted for
decades, and it is obvious that the reputation of the media
is, above all, the reputation of its journalists.
Russian politicians and human rights activists have lost a
channel which in the situation of media censorship helped
them to communicate their views to the citizens.
As we see it, there is still a chance to correct the situation
and not to let a bureaucratic error turn into a political
error.
Sergei Mitrokhin
Grigory Yavlinsky
See also:
Freedom
of Speech
|
