By Scott Peterson
MOSCOW
- Like scores of her colleagues, Georgian television journalist
Nana Lezhava reported on the terrorist school seizure
at Beslan.
But her coverage ended in arrest by the
FSB, Russia's security service once known as the KGB.
Tests show she was drugged during interrogation - one
of several incidents that are raising questions about
Russian handling of the media.
Officials have acknowledged deliberately
downplaying hostage and casualty numbers. A top newspaper
editor in Moscow has been fired for "emotional"
coverage; even one of Russia's state-controlled TV broadcasters
has complained of lack of truth. And two known Kremlin
critics were prevented from reaching Beslan at all, by
KGB-style methods.
"When Nana was interrogated by FSB
officials, she was offered a cup of coffee," says
Tudu Kurtgelia, head of news for Georgia's Rustavi-2 TV.
"She was told they added some cognac to the coffee
and she lost her senses. She doesn't remember anything,
and only came to a day later, in hospital."
Hundreds of miles away, on a flight from
Moscow to get to the Beslan hostage scene, journalist
Anna Politkovskaya asked for tea from a stewardess. After
drinking it she lost consciousness, and upon landing was
taken to a hospital.
"Somebody did not want me to reach
Beslan," says Ms. Politkovskaya, a writer for Novaya
Gazeta and frequent critic of Moscow's policy in Chechnya,
who - because of her contacts with the relatively "moderate"
rebel faction of Aslan Maskhadov - had played a mediating
role in a previous siege.
In this case, Politkovskaya was on the
phone constantly at the airport, perhaps raising official
eyebrows as she tried to convince those close to the at-large
former Chechen president to intervene in the hostage crisis.
"We have old Byzantine traditions to eliminate unwanted
people," says Politkovskaya. "Even a hint from
a top official to his subordinates is sometimes enough
for them to act."
Media fallout from Beslan
The
two suspected drug cases are part of the media fallout
from Beslan, where at least 330 people died, half of them
children. While many journalists were able to report the
events relatively unhindered, analysts say the stream
of official misinformation, incidents of harassment, and
suspected druggings have set a new precedent in attempts
to control the media.
A nationwide poll of nearly 2,000 Russians
found that 85 percent felt they were not receiving the
full story; nearly 20 percent said they were constantly
being deceived. The irreverent print media - the least
controlled format in the country - poured scorn on official
versions of events.
Official information was often contradictory
or wrong. Initially, aides to President Vladimir Putin
listed hostage-takers' demands; later officials said there
were none. The precise figure of 354 hostages was clung
to, even as locals said more than 1,200 people were captive.
"A triple credibility gap arose,
between the government and the media, between the media
and the citizens, and between the government and the people,"
notes a report by the Organization for Security and Cooperation
in Europe issued last Thursday. "This is a serious
drawback for democracy."
Kommersant-Vlast magazine listed some
of the guidelines to limit what the press could and couldn't
report. At NTV, for example, a "semiofficial document"
was circulated early in the Beslan crisis, demanding media
self-censorship on everything from troops deployed to
names and nationalities of witnesses, relatives, and even
hostages.
The words "special operation"
was prohibited, as was "shahid" [suicide martyr]
- a word that, along with the phrase "war in Chechnya,"
has already been prohibited on state TV for a year. Forbidden,
too, were listing of hostage-takers' demands and interviews
with hostage relatives. Analysis of options to save the
hostages, of steps already taken, or reasons for the crisis
was also forbidden.
The impact was felt even at Rossiya TV,
considered the Kremlin's mouthpiece, which acknowledged
government deception. "At such moments, society needs
to know the truth," Rossiya news anchor Sergei Brilyov
announced on air, blaming "generals, the military,
and civilians" who refuse to act "until the
president gives them the order."
Debating the role of
journalists
These attempts to control the media are sparking a debate
in Russia about the role of the media as acts of terror
unfold - a debate that raged in October 2002 after Chechens
seized a Moscow theater and 800 hostages. Later, broadcasters
voluntarily agreed to a list of self-censorship restrictions.
Some critics argue that full disclosure
of the facts can be dangerous. "I think this is the
kind of lie that saves lives," says Alexei Pankin,
editor of Sreda magazine. "I take it for granted
that [authorities] are not competent, and I know that
attacking them and revealing they are lying will not make
them any better, only more frustrated."
Journalists have a broader responsibility,
too, Mr. Pankin says. The terrorist "objective is
to intimidate ... by the sheer scope of villainy,"
he wrote in a recent editorial. "They are the only
ones with an interest in the broadest and fullest coverage
of the catastrophe; they murder people precisely in order
to get on TV screens and newspaper pages."
That view differs from results of one
call-in poll Friday of more than 3,000 by Ekho Moskvy,
Russia's last independent radio broadcaster. Some 85 percent
believe that an uncensored press helps battle terror.
"The authorities were hysterical
after the [Beslan] terrorist acts, so they vented their
anger on harmless journalists," says Oleg Panfilov,
head of the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations.
"But Rus- sian journalists didn't seem to learn how
to resist."
Among those who did is Raf Shakirov, the
former chief editor of Izvestia, who was forced to resign
after the crisis. The paper's critical reporting culminated
in a powerful day-after issue: The front-page was covered
by an image of a rescuer carrying a near-naked schoolgirl;
on the back page, one photo of a woman grieving as she
touched the head of a dead child.
"I was reproached for coverage that
was too emotional, and I was told I should not traumatize
people," says Mr. Shakirov. "Wasn't it more
harmful to ignore information or give wrong information?
When they gave wrong figures and said terrorists gave
no demands, wasn't it a threat to hostages' lives? No
doubt it was."
The media debate is already shifting into
Russian politics, where some State Duma deputies want
to block press talk of terrorist attacks at all.
"We should make sure that the media
do not facilitate terrorist activity and all means are
good for this," Lyubov Sliska, a ranking Duma deputy
told one newspaper. "We should not be afraid of the
suppression of freedom of speech, the suppression of democracy."
Monitor Moscow staffer Olga Podolskaya
contributed to this report
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