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News Production in Contemporary Russia: Practices of Power 227

seen as a unified actor. ‘State’ actors tend to form temporary alliances among
themselves and with external agents and pursue their short-term group inter-
ests rather than the interests of ‘the state’. The case of the struggle for the
nationwide relay system belonging to St Petersburg Channel 5 in 1997 espe-
cially clearly shows how various ‘parts’ of the state were competing with one
another. Among the most important rivals were: the state Duma upper chamber
(representing regional elites), Moscow’s mayor, the St Petersburg governor and the
state-owned Moscow-based national channel RTR, backed by the Vice-Minister of
Culture.
Thus absence of a unified centre of oppressive power may be found not only
in countries traditionally referred to as democratic, but, for instance, in Russia,
though the nature of this phenomenon is different. In western societies, the state
usually manages to enforce the fulfilment of rules effectively, and its various
‘parts’ interact more or less within these rules. In Russia, power groups emerge
informally, exceeding the boundaries of the state as an institution, and struggle
in a loosely regulated situation.
A typical negative strategy of the ‘state’ agents is selective use of sanctions:
while many violate the rules, only media failing to show loyalty are punished.
The most recent case is NTV – the only private national channel and one of the
few media organizations that was aiming at western-style internal ownership
(that is, at selling objective news as commodity). While all national channels had
comparable debts, repayment was demanded only from the non-obedient NTV.
State agents may use any available institutional resources to influence media:
the tax police, fire and sanitary control organizations, the customs agency, etc.
Often a local administration makes media organizations rent their buildings
from it and then switches off water, electricity, increases rent, etc. (Glasnost
Defence Foundation, 1997a: 353). This is possible because most real estate is
state-owned and buying an office is too expensive for small businesses. State
officers, along with other agents, also use the strategy of bringing legal suits in
court against media organizations, usually on defamation grounds. The purpose
of such suits is mainly not financial compensation, but increasing the media
organizations’ costs in producing unfavourable information.
Positive strategies, apart from monetary bribery, can be described as barter
and other kinds of exchange. They include giving personal privileges (free resort
trips, etc.), and using the aforementioned organizations, but ‘constructively’:
absence of oversight visits, quick resolution of custom and visa difficulties, help
with law-enforcement problems. Professional privileges are also given, for instance,
access to closed sources of information and communication channels (Glasnost
Defence Foundation, 1997b: 11).
When these relations are shaped as an open exchange, they are closer to barter.
But often a service (medical care, registration, etc.) is given to a journalist as an
act of ‘friendship’ or ‘assistance’, and the conditions of reciprocal service (time,
amount, content) are not discussed. Then a return service is theoretically not nec-
essary, but it is expected as gratitude, otherwise the ‘friendship’ will founder.
Barter also characterizes many relationships between journalists and their
sources. These kind of relations are addressed later.