Yesterday Medvedev gave his first interview to a Russian newspaper since becoming president last May. His choice of newspaper was quite interesting - he gave Novaya Gazeta the honor of the first interview. Not only is Novaya Gazeta one of the last remaining critics of the Kremlin in the Russian press, in the past eight years four of its reporters have been murdered, most notably Anna Politkovskaya (internationally renowned for her reporting on the war in Chechnya), who was gunned down in front of her own apartment building in Moscow. Former President (now Prime Minister) Vladimir Putin has been widely criticized in the global journalism community for creating an atmosphere where the press is effectively muzzled and the murder of reporters tolerated.
That's why Medvedev's choice of Novaya Gazeta makes a statement about his attitude towards the media (and is perhaps another indication of his attempts to step out from behind Putin's shadow). The interview itself wasn't particularly noteworthy, though Medvedev did, correctly, point out the way the average Russian continues to associate 'democracy' with the economic chaos Russia endured in the 1990s - a point that is often missed by Western observers. Medvedev noted that because of this connection in the minds of many Russians, bringing democratic reforms to the country needed to be a gradual process.
No comments:
Post a Comment