Gorbachev buys stake in independent Russian paper

Posted by Julian Evans on June 7, 2006 at 12:23 PM

Mikhail Gorbachev, former president of the USSR, told a private dinner at the 12th annual World Editors Forum that he was buying a stake in Novaya Gazeta, a newspaper considered the most critical of the Kremlin. he is teaming up with Alexander Lebedev, a businessman and MP, to buy 49% of the newspaper's shares. The remaining 51% will be owned by the editors' collective of Novaya Gazeta.

Gorbachev said: "The paper should retain its editorial policy, but should also secure a pluralism of opinion and express the public opinion of Russia. We as shareholders promise not to use the publication for our own commercial purposes."

The deal gives Novaya Gazeta a much-needed injection of capital. The newspaper, once published daily, has fallen on hard times and is now only published twice a week, with a national circulation of 550,000. Dmitri Muratov, editor-in-chief, says: "Now perhaps we can pay our top journalists more, increase the number of copies a week to perhaps three, and possibly switch to a colour format. And the money does not harm our reputation. On the contrary, Mr Gorbachev wants to protect our paper's independence. We won't speak for the government, but for society."

Gorbachev has long been a friend of the paper. He used the money from the Nobel Prize which he won in 1990 to help set up Novaya Gazeta in 1993 and give it its first computers. It is known for its stinging investigative journalism, by writers such as Anna Politkovskaya, who has written several books that are highly critical of the government's policy in Chechnya.

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