Journalists are no longer allowed to cover both the president and the prime minister.
From now on a journalist from a federal publication is not allowed to simultaneously cover the activities of both President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Nezavisimaya Gazeta has found out that the two decision-making centres decided there should be no interpenetration between the two pools. Nezavisimaya Gazeta experts believe this will reduce the authorities' transparency and will help to conceal any differences of opinion in the ruling duo.
Almost two years after the political duo was established in Russia, the journalists covering the president and the prime minister are going through unusual changes. Until recently, journalists from Dmitry Medvedev's pool were allowed to write about events related to Vladimir Putin. The Kremlin journalists mainly covered political events involving the prime minister, for example, Vladimir Putin's meetings with heads of United Russia or other political parties.
Nezavisimaya Gazeta has learned that the Kremlin and the White House have decided to divide their pools. A journalist cannot write about both the president and the prime minister, even from time to time. The federal television channels have received an unspoken instruction that the same correspondents should not cover events involving the two state leaders, a source in the State Duma has told Nezavisimaya Gazeta. A similar instruction will be sent to the press. Meanwhile, some journalists from the pools are from time to time subjected to an unclear ostracism. Such a thing has happened to a Nezavisimaya Gazeta correspondent. Yours truly has asked the prime minister's Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov how the selective approach to journalists covering the duo could be accounted for. Dmitry Peskov replied that the press services were trying to put things right to ensure that certain journalists were working in a certain pool.
Head of the Political and Economic Communications Agency Dmitry Orlov believes that this can be related to Vladimir Putin's and Dmitry Medvedev's differences in political style and speech, and that it is important to make that difference clear in the media: "Vladimir Putin remains a bright figure and the person managing the country. Meanwhile, the president is placed as a representative of academic circles, inclined to rationalisation and expressly simple speech." However, Orlov adds that it is still important to keep the audience's attention for at least 30 seconds: "Both Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin should make their most important statements ear-catching and no longer than 30 seconds." The media's role is to underline the leader's brightness and originality.
President of the St Petersburg Politics Fund Mikhail Vinogradov believes that dividing the pools means reducing transparency: "Journalists can no longer compare the president and the prime minister, ask the former about the latter and vice versa. It doesn't seem so rational."
The pools have been divided, first of all, for the sake of information security, Rostislav Turovsky, head of the Political Sciences Department at Moscow State University, has told Nezavisimaya Gazeta: "Journalists have access to insider information." Turovsky believes that may be an effort to reduce cooperation between journalists. The press services are trying to lock up a pool on a leader, to reduce cooperation between journalists, keep them from exchanging information and noting possible different outlooks between the duo, to make them guided by a certain leader. There may be efforts to build a loyal group of journalists, he adds. And this is despite the fact that the president and his retinue are presented as being liberal: "The presentation is feigned in a sense. The issue of access to information, to be more exact, the absence of such access, is more important. Building an image should not be confused with blocking information flows, preventing information leakage and depriving journalists of their insiders' role."
Alisa Samarina