Is Trump’s attack on the media after Putin’s play book?

In 2000, NTV, a Russian TV channel known for independent coverage, was one of the most viewed stations in the country. Evening news was reported about the atrocities committed by the Russian forces in Chechnya and on the corruption plans that were involved in the Kremlin’s senior officials. Its correspondents looked at the possibility that the FSB, Al -Khalaf Agency, looked at KGB, behind a series of mysterious residential bombings that helped consolidate Putin’s strength. The owner of NTV, Vladimir Josensky, a few who started his career by establishing one of the first specialists in the country, faced all kinds of government threats and attacks, most of which were denied as conflicts about corporate debts.

In May, days after Vladimir Putin’s opening to his first term as President of Russia, a high -level Kermlin official transferred the list of demands to NTV. The official said that if the channel hopes to survive, it must end its investigations into corruption in the footnote of Putin, and give up its delightful coverage of the war in Chechnya, and easily gather its editorial policy with the Kremlin.

The final demand is related to one of the most popular offers on NTV: “kukly” or “dolls”, which included cartoons from different members of the country and business. In one of the episodes, which was broadcast a few months ago, the Putin doll appeared in the role of Little Zassis, a character of the story of E. Putin was portrayed as an ugly dwarf, which, through a magic work – a talisman thrown through the bridal version of Boris Peresovsky, the hat that helped engineering his ascension to the presidency – to look beautiful and virtuous, the subject of adherence and reporting.

Putin, journalists and editors who learned, was not only from the sarcastic tone and the effects that his popularity was based on the focus on the mixture, but also through the fact that his doll was, like the character in Hoffman’s original story, somewhat short and ugly. Victor Shindrov, one of the leading script book “Koukly”, told me, “This is like a personal attack, and a stereotype.” Shindrovic said the short position of the doll was a metaphor. “But where Putin got his education”-KGB in the Soviet era-“They do not believe in metaphors.” The official told the channel that the “first person”, meaning Putin, should disappear from “Koukly”.

Shindrovic named. The next episode of “Kukly” Putin appeared as a god – only not in the form of a doll but as a burning chicken and the storm cloud. (An updated version of the Ten Commandments appeared: “You will not steal, unless it is allowed.” In any case, the fate of NTV was set. Before a long time ago, the Holding Company has acquired the Russian energy giant in Gazprom to the majority share in the channel, where it ended its independence and gave the Kremlin a decisive impact on its editorial policy.

Many in the channel, including Shindrovic, the left; Those who quickly have learned the new rules. “The greatest sadness was that many of my colleagues helped Putin’s effectiveness to become his action.”. “Initially, Putin was not strong enough to defeat everyone. He was completely out of work. But by bending to him, they participated in creating what has become, over time, an aura of unreasonable power.” (Shendrovic left Russia in 2022, after a defamation probe was opened against him at the request of Putin’s close colleague.)

The NTV acquisition is also an important precedent. Many individuals and institutions will be distinguished. “Everything has become possible.”.

I spent a decade in Moscow, and during that time independent journalists moved from intimidation and marginalization mainly to their ban. I wanted to ask the players focused on the NTV drama – who looked at the crisis of their channel, to the United States as a model for free expression and democratic values ​​- what they made from the ongoing confrontation between Donald Trump and the American media. Shindrovich noted that for the validity of the political system, its rules – which are ethical permitted – could be more important than the laws they formally govern. These criteria can change quickly, as many society enables adapting to a long state of unclean. “People tend to accept the new rules imposed from the top quite easily,” said Shinrovich. “Unfortunately, it turns out that the United States is not an exception.”

In July, CBS announced that it was canceling the Stephen Colib program late at night, which the network said was “a purely financial decision against a difficult background late at night.” On September 17, ABC suspended the show late at night, hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, due to the comments made by Kimmel in the wake of the killing of Charlie Kirk. Kulbir and Kamil Tram’s critics were. Both of their network have previously paid millions of dollars to settle the lawsuits filed by the president. ABC has paid fifteen million dollars to settle Trump’s defamation claim caused by the comments made by George Stefanopoulos; Paramount Global, who owned CBS, paid sixteen million to settle a “60 -minute” interview with Vice President Kamala Harris, who Trump claimed to be unfair to him. In April, the executive producer of “60 minutes” resigned, as he wrote in a memorandum of employees that CBS owners of CBS had rescued the independence of the program’s editorial program: “It has become clear that I will not be allowed to manage the show as I have always operated it.”