In our next issue we will offer a translation of Yulia Latynina’s writing about the Ukrainian Goldomor genocide, which is commemorating its anniversary this month. For now, writing in the Moscow Times Marc Schleifer, a program officer for Eurasia, and Aleksandr Shkolnikov, a senior program officer for global programs, both at the Center for International Private Enterprise in Washington, compare Ukraine and Russia on coverage of the financial crisis and find that one is acting like a civilized democracy and one like a barbaric banana republic. Care to guess which is which?
Television shows in Russia and Ukraine are worlds apart when it comes to covering the financial crisis. Watching Russian television over the past month, it might be easy to miss that the country is mired in the same twin crises gripping the world — the ongoing credit crunch and the emerging downturn in the real economy. Instead, television news usually focuses on the financial woes in the United States and the U.S. responsibility for the global crisis. Stressing Russia’s emergence as the world’s new economic superpower is high on the agenda for the state-run media. For the average viewer just tuning in, the outlook might seem rosy in Russia, especially compared to other countries.
One can also frequently find reports of new credit being extended to troubled banks and Kremlin-friendly corporations, as well as segments on economic directives being issued down the political chain of command. Coverage of Russia’s collapsing stock exchanges, which have fallen much more than their counterparts in other countries, has been scant.
One would have to dig much deeper to find other worrisome stories, like when some Russian banks refused to give out cash to depositors wishing to make early withdrawals on their fixed-term savings accounts. These issues are not mentioned in the mainstream media, but they are on peoples’ lips. Moreover, there is hardly any debate about the structure of the planned bailout, which some are now calling the reversal of the loans-for-shares scheme of the mid-1990s.
It is interesting to compare this picture to the one in Ukraine.
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