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.
## Concatenated JPRS Reports, 1991 ## Document 15 of 17 4. Still, what is it-an independent newspaper? Not state-owned? Not party-affiliated? We felt proud that none of us belonged to any party or was part of any warring fronts. But can one make a newspaper on this? Then what is it made of? Of looking at the same event from different points of view? Of praising something at some point, and then criticizing it at another? Or perhaps, one should do without any opinions and build a newspaper on facts alone-let the reader figure out what is what? Recipes were offered and rejected, while the publication started. 5. Our very first issue was not to the liking of the functionaries in the new government-we had written about their predilection for ostentatious receptions. The second issue brought us a threat of a lawsuit from the CPL [Communist Party of Latvia] Central Committee. After we criticized Rubiks, former first secretary of the CPL Central Committee, the newspaper of the republic communists SOVETSKAYA LATVIA warned: 'Beware the independents!' The reader was sending puzzled letters: Who are you with? Define your stand! The issue of independent press was also an issue for the reader who was used to the fact that a newspaper defends either the right or the left. Our reader has a long-standing conception that a newspaper must support some clearly defined positions. 6. We did not agree with this. We published letters from readers, explained, and quoted our opponents in the belief that this was also a sign of independence. Groping blindly in the situation of acute political confrontation of parties and movements, we were attempting to create the concept of an independent newspaper. We were rejoicing every time we were mentioned on Svoboda and BBC and in democratic Moscow newspapers. 7. Of course, we were not alone even on the Baltic press market. ATMODA, born under the NFL [National Front of Latvia] wing, was criticizing the NFL leaders. Lithuanian ATGIMINAS slipped out from under the Sajudis guardianship. Lithuanian RESPUBLIKA was bravely battling old and new authorities. The times were demanding publications of a new type, serving the truth rather than group interests. In this sense, we were trying to be independent. 8. Can one, though, remain independent towards good and evil? Towards official corruption? Towards OMON [Special Missions Militia Detachments] excesses? Towards the CPSU and KGB provocations? 9. We were writing about tanks crushing the democratic movement in Vilnius and Riga. About Baltic communist parties that were fooling the workers and were using automatic rifles to fight their own people. Evicted out of the House of the Press by OMON, we put together a homemade January issue almost manually and were giving it
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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.