A Dying Industry of Independent Media in Russia

According to an article from The Moscow Times, there are so few independent media outlets in Russia that you can count them all on one hand. Dozhd is an independent television channel, Novaya Gazeta is an independent newspaper, The New Times is an independent weekly magazine, and finally Ekho Moskvy, an independent radio station.

Ekho Moskvy is in trouble because one of its employees tweeted inappropriately. The employee tweeted that "he realized there is a higher justice" after learning that the son of the Kremlin chief of staff, Sergei Ivanov, drowned at sea in the United Arab Emirates while swimming.

What the employee was referring to was that a couple years ago, the same son of Ivanov, Alexander, ran down an elderly woman and killed her at a cross walk in front of many witnesses. He never got in trouble for this, in fact it was the contrary. "He put pressure on investigators and relatives of the deceased, even going so far as to file false charges against the woman's son-in-law for having supposedly beaten him at the scene."

Gazprom Media owns a large stake in Ekho Moskvy. Mikhail Lesin is the head of Gazprom Media and instructed Ekho Moskvy editor-in-chief, Alexei Venediktov, to fire the employee who posted the tweet. Venediktov refused, first because an employee has the right to post whatever he wants on a personal Twitter account and, second, because the employee in question happens to be one of his best journalists. Lesin undoubtedly anticipated that answer and responded by ordering Venediktov to either fire the employee or resign himself. What's more, the Ekho Moskvy board of directors even scheduled an urgent meeting to discuss the station's editor-in-chief as well as its entire broadcasting concept. (Moscow Times)

This story gets a lot deeper. It involves Russian politics and how it is presented through the media. Most of the radio stations in Russia are pro-Kremlin, while Ekho Moskvy is independent, so they broadcast pro-Putin standpoints as well. For having both viewpoints, this also encourages the government to shut down the station and turn it into something else, like a music station.

Russia is different than the United States when it comes to how they control their media. This problem would never arise in the US, we have rights granted to us that prevent that problem. However, the use of Twitter and the potential issues it can cause relates in both Russia and the United States. This employee who tweeted definitely put himself in danger by basically saying that Ivanov's son deserved to die, hinting at some sort of Karma.

Sure, the employee is allowed to post anything personal but this is certainly controversial. In a place where independent media is limited, one must be careful on how they utilize their power. The government in Russia is looking for any excuse to shut down these stations, and to be shut down over a tweet is not the way to use the power. Just from this article, I can tell that the industry is dying, referring to independent media. The government has a lot of power over media in Russia, so they have to be even more careful than we have to be here in the United States.

It is a strange idea that the independent media in Russia is so limited, compared to the United States independent media, which seems to be the most free form of media. A partial purpose of having an independent media site is to express ideas without interference from the government or to be afraid of other limitations. In other words, God bless America.

"Fake Media"

It is fun reading pieces from websites like The Onion. Most of the articles are fake with funny headlines, but there is some real content. but it is satire for entertainment purposes. Articles with titles like "Mellowing Jihadist Not As Enraged By Western Culture As He Used To Be" and "Scientists Recieve $10 Million Grant To Melt Stuff". The headlines are hilarious, and the articles are even funnier.

The idea that people write fake news stories and make money off of it seems like an ideal job to me. There is so much room for creativity and it might even be more fun to write than to read. My only problem is if they have both real and fake content, it can be hard to decipher what is real news and what is not. But if you are going to The Onion for real content in the first place, you have been looking in the wrong place.

It was funny, I saw a girl share a post on my Facebook newsfeed on newly released photos that exposed the pre-photoshopped photos of Kim Kardashian from the magazine cover of "Paper Magazine". This girl was upset, expressing a frustration of how magazines depict what a beautiful woman should look like, and by doing so they use fake photos.

This girl has a real reason to be upset. I agree that this is a problem within our society. However, the article was not real. She shared this article from Empirenews.net, another satire website that puts up hilarious articles similar to The Onion. This girl is not the first person to make a mistake like this, but it is evidence to show how authentic these articles appear.

We should not trust whatever pops up on the internet, that was the girl's only mistake. These satire websites are not trying to cause harm by making fake news and fooling people, but it is all for entertainment purposes. We must remember when viewing these websites, we must see what else the website is about before we give credit to it. Empirenews.net had stories on its homepage "President Obama's Birth Certificate Sells For 3.4 Million At An Auction" and "Microsoft Founder Bill Gates 'Comes Out' As Homosexual".

Both The Onion and Empire News have disclaimers that say they are "satirical and entertainment website[s]. We only use invented names in all our stories, except in cases when public figures are being satirized. Any other use of real names is accidental and coincidental." We all must remember to look for these things when we see want to share such ridiculous stories!

Hip-Hop and Independent Media = Peas and Carrots

When it comes to using a media format, music has its own.

I looked into a website called The Boombox, a blog that follows the music genres of hip-hop, rap and R&B. News is different with music. There are so many different forms of events to keep track of, from social influence to songs being released. There is a lot to cover in the world of music, and it is covered differently than standard news.

The Boombox has a typical newsfeed as its homepage, along with many different columns to the right of the newsfeed. The newsfeed includes many different topics: Album and album cover release dates, tour announcements, interviews with artists, and a weekly contest called The Boombox Battle, where reviewers compare the recent hit songs and decide which is better.  

The columns on the site include a photo gallery, a section called "Lists", and style. The photo gallery includes style transformations of artists, couples that did not last, and 20 artists with their real names revealed. "Lists" is self-explanatory, making lists of top songs on albums, top clothing for the fall and winter seasons, top songs of certain artists, and things of that nature. It is something similar to what you would see on Buzzfeed, just in hip-hop's form. Style shows the trending fashions and recent releases of clothing.

This is all very fan friendly. One thing that I notice is that it is hard to have bad news when this is the content that is being provided. Sure, there will always be negative news, such as death or crimes committed. But the industry provides mostly positive news, making the website that much more appealing. That goes along with any music news site I'm sure, but how many media sites do you know that is filled with positive news, while having minimal negative news?

Another thing that works perfectly with combining independent media and hip-hop is that hip-hop has a huge underground culture. There are so many artists that are not played on the radio or are advertised by Nike, or whatever you deem mainstream. Not only is there plenty of underground music, it is considered high quality within the culture. My guess to the main reason why it is not covered by the mainstream is because of explicit content that would not be allowed on public radio otherwise.

The Boombox provides great content to the people of the hip-hop world. It is not only good for the fans, but it is great for the artists as well. Artists that would not have been heard of otherwise may not have been able to share their music with the rest world. Hip-hop is just one genre, but music would be a great topic to cover for an independent media outlet

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Defining a Journalist

It is important to distinguish who is a part of the media and who is not because media is involved in our law system. In a particular case, Mark Bunster, the author of the politcal blog "Loaded Orygun", was asked to leave a Lake Oswego City Council meeting because non-members of the news media were not allowed to sit-in on executive session meetings.  Bunster tried pleading his cause to say he was a member of the news media, but there was not a clear policy supporting either cause. The council asked Bunster to leave anyway.

Although this seems unfair, Lake Oswego City is making moves to create a policy that defines who a member of the news media is. Each of these definitions were proposed with further detail, but here is the general gist presented by city council:

• Regular reporting on the Lake Oswego City Council

• Multiple personnel with defined roles

• Registration with the state Corporation Division

• Reporting "conducted continuously (at least weekly) and permanently"

• Publications or broadcasts that include "at least 25 percent news content"

• Media representatives would be allowed to attend executive sessions if they provide evidence that includes "proof satisfactory to the City Council that the person is gathering news," along with a press badge, a recently published news article with their byline or an editor's note on letterhead.

Let's take each definition step by step:

First, I do see it as important for someone to have done regular coverage of the Lake Oswego City Council. How can someone give quality coverage of the council without knowing what is going on. Fairly simple concept.

But why does this form of news media have to be multiple personal? Is a journalist not credible if the person does all the work by themselves? If someone frequently reports, and reports such information accurately, what makes his/her news less credible than news generated by a group? These are the questions I would ask to challenge that definition. I do understand that there could potentially be hundreds of individuals that claim to cover the local government in an appropriate manner, but in reality are crazy people that are completely bias towards what they write about.

To sort out these crazy people from the "true" journalists is part of the reason why these definitions are needed in the first place. What the problem is from the journalist's eye is that some "true" journalists may be mistaken as one of those crazy people, which is understood to an extent. It is an industry full of passionate people. People so moved by something, that they had to write it down, or type it up to share it with the rest of the world.

They must share this information weekly, apparently, in order to prove that they are established journalists. I agree that if you are a journalist, you report "regularly", but who is to say a weekly basis should be that line? I can see a biweekly newsletter being an effective news source. For bloggers, however, I see why it would be a weekly minimum. It's only because a blog post is not usually as full of stories as a newsletter or something like a newsletter.

In terms of reaching 25% news content, it should be easy for a blogger to be considered a journalist. Sure they will have ads for revenue and things along those lines. But if those ads are overdone, they can turn off potential consumers. As long as the outlet limits those pop-up ads and other obnoxious forms of advertising, there should be no problem having over 25% news content through an outlet.

Since these definitions are being implemented, it is important to have the City Council decide whether these credentials are met. The error, that I see, of this process is that the local government now has more power over what news reaches the media and what doesn't. The City Council may not want independent media outlets showing up to executive meetings, knowing that large media news coverage with give the generic and basic story, rather than digging and finding out more. So even if these independent journalists have the credentials the city set, they could be denied because these people and power don't want people sniffing around.

Defining a journalist is not easy, but for law-sake it needs to be done. Separating a independent journalist from a mainstream one is challenging, which is what I think this local government in Oregon is trying to do. I understand there are going to be meetings not open to the public, but they are disallowing "true" journalists. I see a line being drawn in-between the independent and commercial journalist in order to keep the power they hold on the media, rather than having people that may not support the government's actions.