Results matching “new editor for izvestia”

The famous Russian newspaper Izvestia and The New York Times are introducing the first Russian-language version of the New York Times International Weekly in Moscow editions of Izvestia, 19^th June.

Success stories from Eastern European newspapers will be presented at the seventh session of the 13th World Editors Forum, which began yesterday (Sunday) in Moscow. In Russia, Poland and other Eastern European countries, some smaller titles have performed very well while their popular competition has been losing readers. What are the key factors of these papers’ success? What can editors-in-chief around the world learn from their strategies

A high official of the pro-Kremlin United Russia party is expected to take a top editorial position at the Izvestia newspaper, the chief editor said Thursday, denying it was a political nomination. "All the commentaries that claim it is a nomination ordered by United Russia are ridiculous," said Izvestia's editor-in-chief Vladimir Mamontov. He confirmed the expected nomination soon of United Russia's press
spokesman, Ilia Kissiliov, as deputy editor-in-chief.
Izvestia was taken over in June last year by the state-run gas giant Gazprom, reviving concerns about press freedom. Its subsidiary Gazprom Media has become the biggest media group in Russia in the past few years.

The Russian city of Volgograd is to have a new newspaper after Gorodskiye Izvestia was closed down for publishing its own cartoon, showing religious figures, lampooning the row over the infamous Jyllands Posten Mohammed cartoons (see previous posting). The new paper is to be called Volgogradskaya Gazeta.

 The Editors' Weblog has compiled a provisional list of the newspapers that have printed some or all of the cartoons since 30 September 2005, date of publication of 12 cartoons of the prophet Mohammed in Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten. Even provisional, this list is the most exhaustive on the internet, thanks to members of the World Editors Forum and to bloggers close to the EW.

The main conclusions are:

- to our knowledge, more than 130 national or local newspapers (excluding the student newspapers and online publications) published some or all of the 12 cartoons (sometimes just a pohtography) in approximately 50 countries . It also means that around 1,7% of the dailies around the world - 8,300 paid-for dailies according to World Press Trends 2005 - made the difficult decision to publish the cartoons.

- Europe was the continent where the most newspapers published the cartoons: at least 70 papers. It is not surprising that the Netherlands was the country most involved in the controversy (after Denmark)... a few months after the assassination of the film maker Theo Van Gogh by an Islamist activist. Same thing in France after the veil debate and the November 2005 riots.

- Within Europe, the first publications to reprint the cartoons in January-February 2006 were in general right-wing publications, for example ABC in Spain, Die Welt in Germany and Corriere della Sera in Italy. Then more leftist publications followed suit, for example Libération and Le Monde in France.

- Surprisingly, Arab and Muslim newspapers were also involved in the controversy from the very beginning, with the first reprint on 17 October 2005 (see below)! More than 12 Arab and/or Muslim newspapers published the cartoons. The decision to publish provoked terrible consequences for the editors-in-chief of these publications. Same consequences for some directors of television in Sudan and Algeria. 

- How to define the position adopted by American, British, Canadian and Australian newspapers? Media responsability, political correctness or self-censorship? The most surprising is not the position defined in many editorials (from The New York Times to The Guardian), but this strange impression of unanimity and consensus: only three regional newspapers on more than 1,400 newspapers in the States and zero newspaper, but a student daily in the UK for taking the risk...

- And what in the rest of the world? Nothing. Almost the desert for the publication of the cartoons in the Americas (apart Brazil), Africa (apart South Africa) and above all Asia (apart New Zealand). As if this controversy was only between Europe and the Arab world and if blasphemy was still relevant in regions as Asia and the Americas: not only about Mohammed, but about all religious issues.

My conclusion: the geography of the publication of the Danish cartoons tells us a lot about our democracies: what is allowed, what is forbidden... and what is taboo. In fact, it's more geopolitics than geography!

Vladimir Borodin is expected to be replaced as editor-in-chief of Izvestia newspaper by Vladimir Mamontov from Komsomolskaya Pravda. This was confirmed by Nikolai Senkevich, Gazprom-Media Holding General Director and new owner of Izvestia.

 

Last month in Moscow, the Russian Guild of Press Publishers held the First Russian Publishers Conference.  During the Press Freedom Seminar, President of the World Editors Forum and Saturday Editor of The Times (London), George Brock, gave a talk discussing the freedom of the press in Russia, whose text is posted below. 

Leaders of the Russian press and foreign publishers and editors, meeting in Moscow to discuss press freedom problems, were stood up by a senior Kremlin official who pulled out of the programme at the last minute. "Another brilliant public relations coup to improve the Kremlin's image on press freedom and independence", said – ironically - Timothy Balding, Director General of the World Association of Newspapers, which organised the meeting together with the World Editors Forum and the Russian Guild of Press Publishers (GIPP), during Publishing Expo 2005, which ends in Moscow today, Thursday.

He is certainly one of the youngest editor-in-chief around the world. According to Radio Free Europe, "Vladimir Borodin, who has been serving as acting editor in chief of "Izvestia" since the 6 September resignation of former Editor Raf Shakirov, has been named the daily's editor in chief on 13 October, Russian media reported. Borodin is just 26 years old and began his career in journalism in 1997, "Vremya novostei" reported on 14 October. Borodin said there will be no major staff shakeups but that "several new people will appear in the management," ITAR-TASS reported. Shakirov, who resigned following criticism of the paper's coverage of the Beslan hostage crisis, told Ekho Moskvy on 13 October that "Borodin is a man who has very good prospects and he will most certainly cope with his new commitments."

Source: Radio Free Europe through EJC newsletter. See also former postings.

Just received from Vladimir Sungorkin, Komsomolskaya Pravda editor-in-chief after our posting on the delay for appointing a new editor at Izvestia after the resignation of Raf Shakirov due to its Beslan siege coverage: "Dear Bertrand, thanks for the attention to my modest person. As far as I know, the Izvestia editor-in-chief will be another person than me. In my personal case, I would like to head further the most popular newspaper in Russia – “Komsomolskaya Pravda”. Sincerely yours, Vladimir Sungorkin, KP editor-in-chief."

Source: The Editors Weblog

Read in Sreda, monthly magazine for Russia’s media professionals. The article is written by Alexei Pankin: "... The editor Raf Shakirov was punished for the issue of Izvestia newspaper published the morning after Beslan school storming. Eviction of Shakirov is a double shame. This is shame on the Kremlin who believes it permissible to interfere into private media affairs. And this is shame on the managing Prof-Media company that needed a kick from the Kremlin to make this kind of decision."

Read in Sreda, monthly magazine for Russia’s media professionals. The article is written by Alexei Pankin: "... The editor Raf Shakirov was punished for the issue of Izvestia newspaper published the morning after Beslan school storming. Eviction of Shakirov is a double shame. This is shame on the Kremlin who believes it permissible to interfere into private media affairs. And this is shame on the managing Prof-Media company that needed a kick from the Kremlin to make this kind of decision."