II. Context for the Northern News Service Glasnost' and the Russian media during 1988-1992 The Northern News Service was born into an era of profound change and uncertainty for the Soviet press. By 1988, the escalating process of perestroika (restructuring) had engulfed the press and related institutions of propaganda even more than the Soviet nation as a whole. Editors, leaders of writers' unions, filmmakers and propagandists all were searching for ways in which to bend their enterprises to the demands of glasnost'. Glasnost' as a term encompassing public debate and open information has been traced back at least to discussions of "an exchange of opinions ... about the country's much-needed social and economic transformation" in the days of Tsar Nicholas I, 1825-1855 (McNair: 1991: 28), and both the word and the idea have surfaced regularly ever since. Many in the West use the term generally to refer to the period of rapid change associated with Mikhail Gorbachev's tenure as Soviet leader. For others, glasnost' was a specific Communist Party campaign designed not so much to free public expression as to manage it by allowing some more openness. For this study, however, glasnost' means a specific effort aimed at allowing and encouraging a more open, pluralistic and critical exchange of views initiated as a central tenet of Gorbachev's wide-ranging perestroika campaign. Gorbachev had championed the notion of "socialist pluralism" and glasnost' in a December 1984 speech even before his selection as general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), and he must be credited with fatherhood of the modern era of openness in Russian society. Later, in his book Perestroika: new thinking for our country and the world, he elaborated on the necessity of glasnost' for his nation: We want more openness about public affairs in every sphere of life. People should know what is good, and what is bad, too ... Truth is the main thing ... Today, glasnost' is a vivid example of a normal and favorable spiritual and moral atmosphere in society, which makes it possible for people to understand better what happened to us in the past, what is taking place now, and what we are striving for ... The people should know life with all its contradictions and complexities. Working people must have complete and truthful information on achievements and impediments, on what stands in the way of progress and thwarts it ... People are becoming increasingly convinced that glasnost' is an effective form of public control over the activities of all government bodies, without exception, and a powerful lever in correcting shortcomings ... We regard the development of glasnost' as a way of accumulating the various diverse views and ideas which reflect the interests of all strata, of all trades and professions in Soviet society ... We need glasnost' like we need the air. (Gorbachev, 1987b: 75-78) In the complicated world of governmental behavior in the USSR, however, the glasnost' guidelines were seldom clear. In May, 1988, "executives of the mass media, ideological institutions and creative unions" were summoned to a meeting of the CPSU Central Committee presided over by Gorbachev. As quoted in extensive Soviet press reports, including front page articles in Pravda and Literaturnaia Gazeta, the media executives demonstrated considerable differences of opinion in defining the most important issues or the roles they should play in applying the tool of glasnost' to the process of perestroika. Gorbachev's address to the assembled media elite likewise was long on general theory and exhortation but decidedly short on specifics (Pravda, 11 May 1988). Clearly, at this point journalists in the Soviet Union knew the direction they were headed, but had nothing like a roadmap to show them the way to get there. Even two years later, a Soviet scholar would remark: "Five, ten or 15 years ago I knew exactly what was permissible and what was not; I knew exactly where the boundaries were drawn between the prohibited and the possible. Today, I do not know this any more ..." (Melville, 1990: 11). But despite uncertainty about their precise direction, the importance of the enterprise was evident to all. I. D. Laptev, editor in chief of Izvestia, told participants at the meeting: "For us, as ... journalists and ideologists, what is of primary importance is how we do the job that has been assigned to us--how we advance the policy of openness, how we develop it and affirm it, and what we have achieved ... It is not just the Soviet people but the whole world that today perceives the policy of openness as an indicator of how our restructuring is going" (Pravda, op. cit.). Gorbachev echoed that generalized notion, saying "An enormous responsibility rests with the editors and executives of the mass media in this critical time, when society has reached a very important stage in our history" (ibid.). Thus the media managers were faced with a rare situation in their experience: a challenge that was at once deemed vital and important, but for which there were no firm guidelines from on high about the best way to proceed. Throughout the Soviet media establishment, a continuing and often public debate over glasnost' was underway. "During the first three years of glasnost' we have heard many times, 'There must not be glasnost' without boundaries.' But, ironically, the alarmists hardly knew what the limits of glasnost' should be, because glasnost', as a process, gradually transcends its limits. What is 'allowed' or 'not allowed' is an illusory thing, since the snowballing effect of glasnost' makes all boundaries temporary" (Melville & Lapidus, 1990: 53). That uncertainty would have been unusual for most in the Soviet media and propaganda enterprises, which had, since the founding of the Soviet state, been carefully controlled and closely monitored. "Never before the Bolsheviks had any regime in history attributed such importance to the Word and the Image ... they have made use of every means modern technology affords--newspapers, radio, cinema, television--to project information, outlook, ideology" (Hosking, 1989: 1). And as David Wedgwood Benn observed, "The Soviet Communist Party has always devoted an enormous amount of energy to propaganda, which is a vast and highly organized activity in the USSR" (Benn, 1991: 217). Indeed, press and propaganda have occupied a prominent position from the earliest days of the Soviet revolution--and even before. It is not simply coincidental that both Karl Marx and V.I. Lenin spent "a substantial portion of their adult lives working and writing for newspapers and journals" (McNair, op. cit.: 9). Indeed, as early as 1902 Lenin wrote that "the starting point of our activities should be the founding of an All-Russian political newspaper. A newspaper is what we most of all need ..." (quoted in McNair, ibid.: 15). Newspapers in particular have always played a central role in the Soviet information system, finding widespread circulation and consumption. Although the figures are not directly comparable, it is still instructive to note that statistics from 1983-1985 show US newspaper circulation averaging about 63 million copies, with the Soviet figure at 179 million (Remington, 1988: 100). As McNair observes, "In general terms, wherever the Soviet people gather together in significant numbers to live and work, newspapers are produced" (ibid.: 45). Particularly noteworthy in regards to the Northern News Service is the dramatic interest in international news demonstrated by Soviet newspaper readers. In a pioneering study of Russian newspaper reading published in 1981, Ellen Propper Mickiewicz found "Readers ... turn first to international news. Articles dealing with international events and light human interest or humor pieces are consistently the most widely read ... The interest in international news is one that cuts across all age groups, all levels of educational attainment, and all occupations. The intensity of the thirst for international news is such that respondents, when asked in what area they would like more information, say international news" (Mickiewicz, 1981: 58). A Soviet sociologist working inside the USSR found much the same pattern, noting that over the course of his 1955-1985 study period, "International affairs ... seem to be the first topic of conversation among Soviet citizens ... Interest in Western developments does not seem to vary according to demographic and social variables (sex, education, social status, place of residence, et cetera). Women and men, rural and city residents, people with higher and elementary educations--all avidly devour international information..." (Shlapentokh, 1989: 144). In their search for international information, readers apparently preferred articles from foreign sources. "Any legal source of international information attracts a gigantic following..." (ibid.: 144). Shlapentokh cited another Soviet sociologist concerning "the yearning of the Soviet people for information of foreign origin .... Upon being asked what sources of foreign information they prefer, 66 percent of Literaturnaia Gazeta's readership voted for original foreign materials" (ibid.). What is more, this hunger for international information was being satisfied badly by the Soviet media. Glasnost', by most accounts, came more slowly to international news coverage than to home news. For a variety of reasons, reporters and editors of foreign news were much slower than domestic journalists to embrace the liberating philosophy of glasnost', leaving their material especially dull by comparison. Under glasnost' "It is the younger, more aggressive journalists writing on domestic problems who have captured the attention of the public with sensational, taboo-breaking exposés" (Remington, op. cit.: 178). An Isvestiya deputy foreign editor was reported to "comment wryly that, while, in the era of glasnost', he approaches the domestic content of his morning newspaper with anticipation, the 'depressing uniformity' of the international section leads him to skim through its pages" (McNair, op. cit.: 123). Traditionally, Soviet newspaper readers might be forgiven for skimming far more than that, for in truth the majority of newspapers presented "depressing uniformity" each day. Citing what he called "the tendency of the Soviet media to be dreary," David Wedgwood Benn noted that: To a considerable degree the newspapers until the early or mid-1980s still lived up to their earlier reputation of neglecting human interest material which could attract their readers, of preaching sermons and of giving high priority to purely economic news of such things as plan fulfillment. There was the authenticated story of a Soviet local newspaper which was found to be devoting 80 percent of its contents to items about production work; 19 percent to items about 'social work' meetings and political study; and only 0.2 percent to problems of the family and everyday life. Such a case may have been extreme; but it was not altogether uncharacteristic. (Benn, op. cit.: 36). To compete for readership and credibility in a changing world--facing intrusion of the world media and reinvigorated domestic coverage among other Soviet papers--would require a more polished performance. "As the new Soviet leadership clearly recognized, dreary uniformity had robbed the Soviet media of credibility. On domestic as well as international issues, foreign sources of information, ranging from radio broadcasts to gossip, filled the void created by official silence" (Lapidus, 1990: 20) Changing that equation would require substantial effort: "Glasnost' ... demands higher standards, increased professionalism. This usually requires the imitation of Western models ... a process which can lay its practitioners open to the charge of importing bourgeois ideology" (Hosking: op. cit.: 4). Still, much of the "bourgeois" had become popular among Soviets. As a Soviet sociologist noted, "... the desire to imitate the Western style of life in one way or another turned Western goods into the most coveted objects in the Soviet Union, making them symbols of well-being and prestige for the majority of the population" (Shlapentokh, op. cit.: 63). In addition, "[glasnost'] offers some degree of legitimation to the assimilation of Western standards, values and ideas" (Lapidus, op. cit.: 26).] Among other things, access to Western journalism could mean simply republishing articles from the Western press, although that process historically had been strictly controlled. In 1989, Mary Dejevesky noted that the Western stories that were republished "appear to have been selected in order to give Soviet readers the 'enemy's view' and may be coupled with an article representing the official Soviet view ..." (Dejevsky, 1989: 27). As glasnost' progressed, that policy would be relaxed. In 1991, McNair found "The access extended to Western sources was of two types: mediated access, in which Western views were qualified by comments from Soviet journalists; and unmediated access, where a viewpoint appeared without qualification ... Prior to the glasnost' campaign, unmediated access was extended only to those non-Soviet views which conformed to Soviet policies and positions. It is no longer uncommon for the Soviet press to publish, uncut, articles by Western sources that are critical of aspects of Soviet life" (McNair, op. cit.: 86). Although increased openness and improving standards would certainly reinvigorate Soviet newspapers, the policy of glasnost' was not initiated to cure the problem of dullness. It was a far more subtle and complicated reaction to recognition that the old system of information and propaganda simply wasn't working--and that for other changes in the Soviet system to proceed, the information system had to be revitalized first. Gorbachev may have had personal convictions about freedom of expression that motivated some of his actions; it is also probably true that he sought glasnost' because it helped him recruit the allies he needed for his broader campaign for perestroika. But even absent any of those ideological or philosophical considerations, he faced an imperative challenge to fix an information system that had lost its ability to communicate effectively with the Soviet public. McNair notes: "As the Brezhnev era came to an end the Soviet Union, like other countries, was beginning to be confronted by the potentially dislocating effects of a global information revolution ... Against this background the traditional Soviet approach to news and information was becoming untenable, as the Korean Airlines and Chernobyl crises showed. Soviet news was losing credibility and legitimacy" (McNair, ibid.: 52). The same pattern is seen by Benn, who writes, "[One] result of the traditional Soviet propaganda system ... is that it can ... diminish its credibility and ultimately cease to perform its intended function" (Benn, op. cit.: 195). Mickiewicz had seen in 1981 that "The pervasiveness of alienation from the local media, particularly the press ... is of considerable concern to Soviet policymakers." Later, in 1988, the head of Glavlit (the censorship agency, officially known as the USSR Council of Ministers' Chief Administration for Protection of State Secrets in the Press) was denouncing what even he called "an unnecessary and harmful cult of secrecy" (V.A. Boldyrevin in Izvestiya, 3 November 1988). At about the same time, a KGB department head wrote that abuse of secrecy "serves to alienate society from the authorities and to promote the constant reproduction of that alienation in the political, economic and social spheres" (Rubanov, 1988: 7). By the end of the 1980s Gorbachev himself identified disintegration of the information system as a central issue when he criticized "the inability to talk to people in the language of truth" (Quoted in Benn, ibid.: 195). Lacking that "language of truth"--indeed, lacking any genuine communication with the public at all--Soviet authorities witnessed wholesale devaluation of their propaganda system. Melville notes that "The poverty of meaning in the official rhetoric engendered a sort of spontaneous de-ideologization in the minds of many" (Melville, op. cit.: 5). Rubanov charged that "uncontrolled secrecy does considerable damage to Soviet people's self-consciousness and dignity and weakens their ties to the state" (Rubanov, op. cit.). As Geoffrey Hosking has written: "The standardization of the authoritative monological text (in whatever branch of the arts or media) became self-defeating. It could no longer fulfill even its pedagological function, because it undermined normal communication between the artist or journalist and his public. Readers looked for information no longer in what the text stated, but rather in what it implied or even omitted ... This dissolution of meaning frustrated the purposes of the media and threatened the death of culture" (Hosking, op. cit.: 2). Indeed, as Hosking noted, "... when Gorbachev decreed glasnost', he was not so much impelling it as uncorking it..." (ibid.: 3).