Russia Threatens Foreign Media Ownership With New Rules

[uhnope]

Source: Bloomberg News

Russian lawmakers gave preliminary approval to a bill that would restrict foreign ownership of media, increasing pressure on independent publications in an industry where state control has grown under Vladimir Putin.

The State Duma, the lower house of parliament, yesterday backed a first reading of the law, which would cut the limit for foreign ownership to 20 percent, by 434 votes to 1. Forbes Russia and the Vedomosti newspaper are among publications that would have to change ownership or close by 2017.

Since becoming president in 2000, Putin has brought major television stations under state control, pushing opposition discourse toward the Internet and some print media. Roman Chuichenko, a deputy with the ruling United Russia party, said the new rules would counter an “information war” being waged against Russia, which is accused by the U.S. and Europe of stoking unrest in Ukraine. It denies involvement.

“The law reflects a siege mentality -- there are enemies seeking to encourage a ‘Russian spring’ and they must be shut down,” said Igor Bunin, head of the Moscow-based Center for Political Technologies. “Foreigners are basically urged to sell out of Russian media by 2017.”

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-24/russia-advances-media-law-testing-pearson-springer.html

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Because Putin hasn't destroyed the independent media enough yet. And expect the DU presence from the RT propaganda onslaught to grow as well:

Looking West, Russia Beefs Up Spending on Global Media Giants

Despite a free-falling ruble and a wealth of other economic woes, the Russian government has announced a substantial increase in funding for state-run media outlets, a move analysts linked with the Kremlin's desire to win sympathies abroad.

The measure — which was stipulated in Russia's federal budget for 2015-17 — comes at a high-stakes period for Russian media.

Moscow has made clear its intent to broadcast its own narrative to international audiences, in a bid to counteract Western media outlets' largely negative coverage of Russian affairs.

RT, which received 11.87 billion rubles ($310 million) in state funding this year, will receive 15.38 billion rubles ($400 million) in 2015, a figure nearly 30 percent higher than what the 2014-16 budget had initially allocated to the network. This represents a 41 percent increase in funding from what the Russian government had originally planned to set aside for RT in 2015, according to the RBC business news agency.

[Lenomsky]

1. State run is not disimilar to corporate run ..

fuck our media outlets are pretty useless so you go Russia I'll get my news from the interwebs like any sensible person.

[uhnope]

2. False equivalency. The only major news outlet in USA comparable to RT is FOX

[CJCRANE]

3. But look at the damage Fox does!

[karynnj]

6. The difference is immense. The problems with US news are more that they

are now treating it like the entertainment business and will cover, not what is most significant, but what will get the greater viewership. This is not a new phenomena. What is a real problem is that there is much more consolidation.

Back in the 1960s and 1970s, when I was in college, I loved the huge library at college and loved that they bought and put out a huge number of newspapers. It was always interesting to read about the same event in many places. Most of the articles were genuinely written by the papers' writers - and they were independent, even if informed by a common background.

Now, with the internet this was interesting, but is becoming less so. When even the second tier papers use the AP or USA Today article, possibly with some editing, it would be kind of boring to read 10 or so accounts of some event.

Also loss with this consolidation is that we hear a smaller number of voices.

However, this is nothing like what you see in Russia. First of all, a cursory read - even of the most elite papers - would show you that there is little deference to the President or, in most cases, the local governor or mayor. All you have to do is compare the coverage of Putin over the last 3 months in Russian media and Obama here. There is no contest -- and, if anything, Putin has done things that should have raised eye brows (ie speaking of checking out the Lithuanians who evaded the Soviet draft in the early 1990s!)

[uhnope]

4. Will Thom Hartmann get a raise?

[salib]

5. I would have no problem if a law like this passed here in the USA.

And I doubt too many here would say that we were trying to shut down independent news sources simply because we wanted USA ownership of USA media.

[Xithras]

7. Last I checked, the U.S. already had similar laws on the books

Unless the rules have been changed relatively recently, the United States places a 20% limit on direct ownership of major media by foreign investors, and a 25% limit on foreign ownership through subsidiaries. These limits caused some major problems in the mid-90's when the FCC realized that Murdoch's News Corp was Australian based and was in violation of those limits. He was ultimately granted a couple of waivers that allowed Fox to continue operating in the United States, until he finally moved the News Corp headquarters to Texas in order to get around the rules.