Backing Yeltsin Is a Matter of Survival to Russian Media

When President Boris N. Yeltsin’s campaign director walked into the news conference, the Russian reporters broke into enthusiastic applause.

According to television reports, hard-liners on Yeltsin’s team had been plotting to derail the July 3 presidential runoff but were foiled overnight by, among others, campaign director Anatoly B. Chubais.

The story was broken in the wee hours of the morning last week by NTV, Russia’s first independent television network--whose owner, Igor Y. Malashenko, had taken a leave from his job to work on the Yeltsin campaign.

At the emotion-charged news conference, Chubais praised Malashenko for his “exceptional role” in the Kremlin intrigue, which ended in the purge of three unpopular hard-liners close to Yeltsin.

The spontaneous applause by the rank-and-file reporters, and Malashenko’s prominent position in Yeltsin’s campaign, reflect the unusual role Russia’s fledgling independent media are playing in the country’s hotly contested presidential race.

Their goal, which they ardently defend, is not to cover the campaign objectively but to do all within their power to help Yeltsin win.

Yeltsin’s Communist rivals--and many foreign observers--criticize them for selling out their ethics.

But journalists justify their coverage by explaining that a victory by Communist Gennady A. Zyuganov would guarantee the demise of Russia’s independent media and bring back the days of state censorship.

“Life is going to be predictably difficult under Yeltsin,” said Malashenko, “but it would be a predictable disaster under Zyuganov.”

Western observers warn that biased coverage of the campaign could damage the media’s credibility with the people.

“I don’t think it bodes well for the independent media in Russia that they explicitly campaign for Yeltsin,” said Laura Belin, a U.S. political analyst who surveys the written and broadcast news here for Open Media Research Institute, formerly Radio Liberty. “The Communist press is at least as biased in favor of Zyuganov. But they don’t pretend to be independent.”

But many Russian reporters and editors say the foreign observers don’t understand how high the stakes are.

“My newspaper is not objective--nor is Pravda,” admitted Igor N. Golembiovsky, 58, the executive editor of Izvestia.

After an attempted coup by hard-liners in August 1991, the paper declared independence from the state. But Golembiovsky and his staff had to struggle for their freedom through a series of court battles against parliament, which wanted to take over the paper. It was finally privatized in 1993.

“If Zyuganov wins, the Communists will nationalize Izvestia--they don’t even try to hide this,” Golembiovsky said.

For most of Golembiovsky’s 30 years at the paper, a censor read everything he wrote, so he is unwilling to stand by and let the Communists take Izvestia back.

“We were all undercover dissidents,” Golembiovsky recalled. “We wrote very long articles in order to publish a paragraph of truth somewhere.” Intelligent readers knew this and scoured the paper reading between the lines.

Younger journalists are no less fervent in their determination to boost Yeltsin.

Unlike Golembiovsky, Natalia A. Timakova, 21, who follows Yeltsin on all his campaign trips for the newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets, has never submitted a story to a censor--and she is determined never to be put in that position.

“I can’t tell you how bad it would be for my work at the newspaper if Zyuganov won,” Timakova said. “Now, I am a completely free person. But if Zyuganov comes to power, I will not be.”

Timakova said she senses her stake in the election every time she writes a story.

“We’re not just choosing our president. We’re choosing how we will live,” she said. “I consider my job now to ensure that people correctly choose how we will live.”

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To boost Yeltsin’s appeal to readers, Timakova tries to paint him as a real human being, meeting with people on the campaign trail and revealing his humor and personality.

“I try to show people that he’s not the worst president,” said Timakova, whose paper is the largest-circulation daily in Moscow. “I see this not as working for him but working for myself and my newspaper and my country.”

The threat of a Communist victory is deeply felt by the editors of Itogi, a glossy weekly newsmagazine whose first regular issue hit the stands just a month before the first round of the election on June 16.

Sergei Parkhomenko, the chief editor, said that even if the Communists did not immediately crack down on the media, there are many ways that a Zyuganov victory could doom their magazine, which is being produced as a joint venture with Newsweek.

Zyuganov wants to reassert state control over much of the economy, which could cause the country’s nascent free market to collapse, killing the advertising industry that funds the magazine’s production. Zyuganov has also said he would increase taxes on goods brought in from abroad, which would cripple Itogi because it is printed in Finland.

“This is not a game with equal stakes,” Parkhomenko said. “This is why I’m willing to be unfair. This is why I’m willing to head up a wild anti-Communist psychosis among the people.

“And, you know, this is why the Communist indignation over all of this is funny. They accuse us of something we don’t deny.”