Report: Putin Tightens Control Over Russian Media

Alexi Venediktov, Putin

Russia’s Ekho Moskvy radio station, which gives a platform to critics of the government, said it faces a threat to editorial independence as its state-controlled majority owner moved to replace the company’s chief executive, according to Bloomberg.

Ekaterina Pavlova a former high-level manager in state media, was elected as CEO at a shareholder meeting, Gazprom Media, a unit of the gas exporter, which controls 66 percent of voting shares, said on its website today. She replaces Yuri Fedutinov, who has been in that job since 1992.

The decision is “unfair,” Ekho Moskvy Editor-in-Chief Alexei Venediktov, who faces re-election to another five-year term, said in a blog entry today. The move is “not based on economic grounds and is aimed at pressuring the editorial policy of Ekho Moskvy and personally me as editor-in-chief.”

President Vladimir Putin is moving to control dissonant voices at home as Russians fume about the criticism of Sochi Olympics in global media. The Russian leader, who won a third term in 2012 after facing the biggest protests of his now 14-year rule, is tightening the reins on independent media, having brought the main national television channels under state control during his first term.

The overhaul at Ekho Moskvy, founded in the dying days of communism, follows the threat of closing for independent television channel Dozhd and the dissolution of state news service RIA Novosti.

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