Zygar, the founding editor of the Russian channel TV Rain, is answering interviewer Olivia Manis on why the barrier to independent media in Russia was financial rather than legal. Most large outlets in 2000 belonged to oligarchs who wanted political influence, so changing the owners was enough to change the editorial line. Later in the interview he names self-censorship, not trials or statutes, as the first thing to watch for anywhere.
Yeah, we all know that Vladimir Putin is obsessed with history and he never misses the opportunity to have a long lecture about history. He is lecturing foreign leaders. He was lecturing Takar Carlson when he gave an interview to him. And yes, he repeats the same myths, the same historical narratives. And basically, he believes in many. Because Russian imperial history is the classical version of Russian history that was created back in the 19th century. That's the only version we know. And unfortunately, Russian history has never been de-imperialized. We don't know any history of peoples who live in Russia. We don't know the history of Russian people. We don't know the history of all those peoples who were invaded and suppressed by the Russian Empire, like Ukrainians or Tatars or Buryats or so many, many more ethnicities who continue living in Russia or have their own states. No. That's one of the problems that has become very obvious after the invasion of Ukraine, because Putin is trying to justify his war with that classical traditional imperial narrative. He's claiming that Ukrainians and Russians. Are the same people, and there is no such nation as Ukrainians. He claims even that Ukrainian language does not exist. And he uses the classical story from Russian history, the moment when Peter the Great was fighting against Swedish emperor Charles XII, and the military leader of Ukraine, Hetman Mazepa, was the ally of Russian emperor, but then he switched sides basically because he chose the interests of his own people. He realized that the Russian Empire was a great threat to his people, and so he chose to become an ally of Sweden. But in classical Russian literature, as well as in classical Russian history, that is the symbolical betrayal of Ukrainians. And that motive of Ukrainians as traitors who have always betrayed Russians somehow still exists in Russian literature, in Russian history, and is constantly repeated by Putin, by Putin's propaganda, and by a lot of historians. So, yes, I think that's another big problem, that the traditional version of Russian history is constantly used by Putin to brainwash a lot of people. And that's not something he invented. That's the same narrative that has been used for centuries. And a lot of people in Russia believe in it because they have never heard about the possibility of another look on history.
I kind of want to shift gears now. We've talked about the Russia-Ukraine War,. We've talked a little bit about the incentives that come into play in terms of how Russia interacts with geopolitics and the international order. I want to talk a little bit about the situation in Russia in terms of press freedom and power consolidation. And I want to dig into that and then talk a little bit about how your experience with that sort of situation is maybe framing some of the things we're seeing in the US right now. So, first of all, I want to preface this by saying that Lawfair is a publication that kind of rests at the nexus of law and international security. So, of course, we love to focus on the legal elements of current events. But you've made the point previously that one of the main barriers to independent media in Russia is not only the weaponization of the legal system, but the way that media is kind of financially structured. So, I think you've said something to the effect of, you know, there's not necessarily a draconian dictatorial law. Capitalism is sort of what has precluded or made difficult independent media. Can you talk a little bit about this?
Sure. Yeah, I think that's a very important part of our troubled experience in Russia with independent media, because really, Putin managed to destroy the free independent media, not with any kind of new laws. He was using all the best practices and all the most liberal press freedom laws that existed in Russia back 25 years ago. And still, it was possible to eradicate independent news TV channels, independent newspapers, because he was affecting the owners. When he was elected president of Russia back in the year 2000, most independent media belonged to big businessmen. We call them oligarchs. Most of them were oligarchs because they were not only businessmen, but they wanted to have the political power. They wanted to affect the political decisions of the government. So, yes, they were playing political games as well. And some of them were oligarchs loyal to Vladimir Putin or wanted to be his allies. Some of them were much more independent. So, he started his presidency with getting rid of disloyal oligarchs and trying to change the owners of the most popular news TV channels. He didn't invent any new laws. It was only business methods. One oligarch could buy the TV channel from another one, but that always led to the change of editorial policy. That always changed to the journalists being fired and replaced by other journalists. And that was a very slow process. But the oligarchs, the people who used to own media, were Doing that work for him. The independent media market was destroyed. Independent media were eradicated not by President Putin, but by the businessmen who had interests in media business as well as in other industries. For most media owners, for most media tycoons, TV channels or newspapers were not the only business interest. They used to own factories and plants and mines and oil fields, and they cared about them much more. And that was the guarantee for the government that every time they wanted something from the media owner, media owners were responsive, loyal, and they wanted to help.
Yeah, so it seems like there was sort of an installment of these essentially oligarchs into positions of influence in terms of media, so that it was all media essentially became Putin-friendly, right? But there was also this element, it seems like, of making smaller media enterprises financially non-lucrative, right? Like it became very difficult to make money as an independent journalist in Russia. And so, I mean, obviously, independent media has found other ways in Russia. You've mentioned social media, you've mentioned sort of smaller channels, ones that are less lucrative, certainly. Is there anything happening in the United States right now that kind of resembles what you've alluded to in terms of making independent media non-lucrative? So I'm thinking kind of threats of lawsuits against smaller media outlets, you know, that functions as a financial deterrent for those who don't have the resources to fight back. Things of that nature. Is there anything that's reminding you of that sort of constricting of media freedom and freedom of expression, either through, you know, making it financially difficult or through other means?
No, it's hard for me to compare the situation in America and the situation in Russia that existed 25 years ago. Because, yeah, definitely countries are very different and the democratic institutions that exist in America are very different and much more developed than the ones we used to have in Russia. But definitely, if we need to write a playbook of how independent media should endure any kind of pressure from anyone, the first word we must remember is the self-censorship. Because that's the biggest threat to media freedom. I don't think, not the trials, not the new laws. Self-censorship is the most important phenomenon. When journalists know that it's not safe for them to do their job, to make investigations, to report about mismanagement, to criticize the government, or anyone, the moment when journalists start being afraid or their bosses, the editors start being afraid of touching some topics, that's the moment when we should know that we're in trouble. I remember that it started with bits of self-censorship in Russia 25 years ago. I remember that when I was working for Russia's that time biggest independent newspaper, we used to know that we had only two taboo topics: Warren Chechnya and President's personal life, his wife. We could not talk about only two issues and the rest was free. That was not an important sacrifice. That was not a very big deal for us. We were sure that it was okay. But that was only the tiny beginning of that self-censorship. And then it was growing. And then we found ourselves in the situation when we could not talk about much more, much longer list of topics. At the same time, 10 years later, back in 20, in 2010, when I was, together with my friends and colleagues, we were launching the only Russia's independent news TV channel. We knew that we could not tolerate any kind of self-censorship. We would be a normal TV channel that covers everything that was important for us, that was important for our audience. But the situation in the market was completely changed. And we knew that the only possibility for independent media to exist was to be miserable, actually, to be not successful. At all. We could exist, we could work. For several years, there was a possibility for us to cover all the important issues, but we knew that there was no chance to have any advertising contract. No advertiser, no big company was able to risk their situation, their profits, by dealing with us, because it was not acceptable for the government. It was still possible for us to work. We had donations from our viewers. We had minor contracts with minor advertisers. We had contracts with cable operators. But still, that was clear that there was no official ban for anyone. But the atmosphere of potential risk was obvious. And that stopped a lot of people from working with us, from talking with us. In the beginning, we were able to work. I was able to send my correspondents to work in the Kremlin press pool, for example. But then that also stopped. And we know that that's a very disturbing practice when government officials prevent journalists from having an access to information. That's the beginning of a very disturbing trend as well.
Yeah, given that last point, I wonder what you make of the White House recently limiting access for journalists to the White House press pool. There's obviously been a lot of controversy about that. I wonder what your thoughts are on that and how concerned we should be as a nation about that, given your experience.