Word: kremlin
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...indifference. Organizers, miffed at the sputtering economy and rising prices, had hoped tens of thousands would show on March 20 to call for Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to resign. But demonstrators in some cities numbered only in the hundreds. The state media, meanwhile, largely ignored the protests. The Kremlin was unmoved...
...first substantive reports on the attacks, which killed at least 39 people. Bloggers and political commentators say the slow response of the networks - Channel One, Rossia 1 and NTV - is indicative of the state of television journalism in Russia today: the major broadcasters have been so cowed by the Kremlin over the past decade, they're incapable of effectively covering events of vital national importance. (See pictures of the suicide bombings in Moscow...
...Ever since then-President Vladimir Putin came to power a decade ago, the Kremlin has steadily reined in the coverage of the main television networks. In the 1990s, the channels tended to slant their coverage in favor of their oligarch owners, but they also produced incisive investigative reports previously unknown to a population raised on Soviet propaganda. The Kremlin has repeatedly denied dictating to the networks how major events should be covered, but Channel One, Rossia 1 and NTV almost never stray from the official line these days and often provide fawning coverage of Putin, now the Prime Minister...
...Anna Kachkayeva, a professor at Moscow State University and television critic with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, says the reluctance of the networks to broadcast breaking coverage of Monday's attacks was only partially due to the pressure they feel to produce reporting acceptable to the Kremlin. She says the art of live coverage has also disappeared in the past 10 years as news broadcasts have become more and more scripted. "There just aren't very many people around anymore who can do live television," Kachkayeva says...
...attacks on the Moscow subway system have made this policy look naive, and the pressure to change course is mounting. Even the Rossiyskaya Gazeta, a Kremlin-loyalist newspaper, ran an op-ed on Tuesday lamenting the government's inaction. "The shrapnel of rage is flying in every direction, not only against the killers - indeed, less against them - but against the leadership, which is not providing security," the paper said. Vladimir Zhirinovsky, head of the nationalist Liberal Democrats, agreed in televised remarks on Monday, saying that Russia must again "take under total control any region where the preparation of suicide bombers...