Documents / FOIA release
This is a JPRS translation, dated 6 November 1991 and held in a CIA release, of an article from the Moscow paper LITERATURNAYA GAZETA by correspondent Tatyana Fast. It tells how Riga journalists founded NEZAVISIMAYA BALTIYSKAYA GAZETA with backing from a business association, which then pressured and threatened them. The staff broke with the sponsor and relaunched as BALTIYSKAYA GAZETA. The article notes that the old title's new staff now writes about UFOs, nutrition and sex.
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
Document 15 of 17 Concatenated JPRS Reports, 1991 Page 1 Classification: UNCLASSIFIED Status: [STAT] Document Date: 06 Nov 91 Category: [CAT] Report Type: JPRS Report Report Date: Report Number: JPRS-UPA-91-046 UDC Number: Author(s): LITERATURNAYA GAZETA staff correspondent Tatyana Fast: How We Were Independent: From One Newspaper's Experience''] Headline: Independent Baltic Paper Struggles To Survive Source Line: 924B0081A Moscow LITERATURNAYA GAZETA in Russian No 44, 6 Nov 91 p 7 Subslug: [Article by LITERATURNAYA GAZETA staff correspondent Tatyana Fast: '' How We Were Independent: From One Newspaper's Experience''] FULL TEXT OF ARTICLE: 1. [Article by LITERATURNAYA GAZETA staff correspondent Tatyana Fast: ' How We Were Independent: From One Newspaper's Experience''] 2. [Text] Riga-The end of party power over the press has created illusions: of the freedom of the press among the public, and of the press' independence among journalists. Riding the wave of glasnost, the papers-both newly established and those which had ceased to be some organizations' organs-one after another were proclaiming themselves independent. Few journalists in these years have been able to resist the temptation to take an opportunity to publish their own independent newspaper. We, several Riga journalists, were not able to resist the temptation, either. Disagreements between the people in the Baltic republics were on the rise, and so was the conflict between the central and local press. Against this background, the absence of an all-Baltic regional newspaper seemed an omission. Thus, our NEZAVISIMAYA BALTIYSKAYA GAZETA was born. A sponsor was available, too-the Baltia Association of Independent Entrepreneurs-who was willing to support the newspaper financially. The association incorporated several cooperative firms and banks, counted business volume in millions, and had hard currency accounts. 3. The desire of the new class to support the newspaper and, in case of success, have a nice calling card in the West and in the East seemed understandable. The emerging business needed information and communication channels. Therefore, we were not surprised by the proposal: "'Make a good newspaper. Money is no object.'" An agreement of noninterference in editorial creative life sealed our aim at independence.
Not linked to a story yet.
FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. The text was read from the page images by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word. 5 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.