Man running down TV station corridor into studio

Campbell: It’s the deadline for Russia’s independent television. Controlled panic grips the studio as they prepare for the news.

2:30

This is NTV, Russia’s only privately-owned national network. For eight years it’s been broadcasting the most respected news service across the world’s largest country.

2:47

It has enraged the Kremlin by probing Government corruption, and it’s exposed the full horror of the war in Chechnya. But tonight it’s reporting its own fight, for survival.

3:17

Map Russia

Music

3:32

News broadcast

Newsreader: Hello, this is NTV News. I’m Piotr Marchenko.

01:02

Music

Newsreader: Today, NTV journalists are staging a protest against the incoming management appointed by Gazprom. Only news is being broadcast. Last night most journalists stayed in their workplaces.

3:39

Campbell: Broadcasting around the clock, NTV revealed it had been taken over by Gazprom, the Russian gas monopoly directly controlled by the Kremlin. The station logo was crossed out by the word protest.

3:52

Newsreader: And the journalists don’t accept the credentials of the new management and are determined to stick to their guns and safeguard freedom of speech to the end.

4:07

Campbell: The takeover has incensed the dwindling numbers of Russians still fighting for media freedom. Among them, the man who first allowed openness in a policy called Glasnost.

4:30

Gorbachev

Super:

Mikhail Gorbachev

Former Soviet President

Gorbachev: What happened today is nonsense – it’s outrageous and humiliating for all of us Russian citizens, getting rid of the channel like this -- putting the journalists in such a position. I think we must reject this decisively and we must protect the company.

4:59

Paramilitary at NTV building

Campbell: The take-over was the climax of almost a year of State harassment. Authorities mounted dozens of raids on NTV and its parent company Media-Most. Week after week, masked paramilitaries and civilian investigators stormed in, seizing one-and-a-half tonnes of documents and interrogating more than 200 staff.

5:24

They claimed to be pursuing money owed to Gazprom, but this went far beyond a normal investigation. The raids included officers of the FSB, the feared successor to the Soviet KGB.

5:24

Krichevsky enters studio

To news director Grigory Krichevsky, real life had become like the gangster films NTV screened between bulletins.

5:43

Krichevsky: Of course the pressure is huge. How does a journalist feel when investigators from the prosecutor’s office

Krichevsky

Accompanies by FSB officers walk past the room where he is editing his story. You see, the problem is not just NTV… The problem is that NTV is a litmus test for Russia, for the country, for the path it will follow.

5:59

Communist attack on TV centre

Campbell: NTV was born in 1993 as Communists and ultra-nationalists tried to smash critical media. On the eve of an attempted coup, a mob attacked the TV centre.

6:23

They were only repelled after a fierce gunfight with police. The Communist coup attempt failed, and NTV, a station committed to the new democracy grew into the country’s most successful network.

6:41

Exterior NTV building

Today it operates from the same TV centre the Communists attacked. And once again there’s a sense of siege.

6:59

We spent a week at NTV in the lead-up to the takeover. While we were filming, there was yet another raid. Investigators arrived to grill the acting finance director, they jailed her boss last June.

Campbell to camera

Super:

Eric Campbell

Campbell: There have now been more than 30 raids on NTV and its parent company, Media-Most. The Kremlin insists it’s simply an investigation of financial fraud. But it could see the Kremlin take over Russia’s last independent television network. Many here fear it marks the beginning of the end of Russian democracy.

7:24

NTV is convinced this boardroom coup has been planned and directed by Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin.

7:45

Krichevsky

Krichevsky: Let’s count. We are being investigated by the prosecutor’s office, the FSB, the tax police, the tax inspectorate, the court of arbitration, the Moscow City Court and Gazprom – the company that is headed by the Kremlin Deputy Chief of Staff, Dmitry Medvedev. Who can coordinate the actions of so many State departments – except for the President? My answer is, nobody.

7:53

Putin with army

Campbell: Putin came to power last year on a wave of patriotic fervour, after the army over drove out rebels from the breakaway republic of Chechnya. The former KGB agent vowed to restore Russia as a great power while preserving democracy.

8:20

Yevgeny Kiselyov with Krichevsky

But NTV’s general director, Yevgeny Kiselyov, says Putin has been sacrificing democracy to increase his own power.

8:37

Kiselyov: Yes, I think that Mr Putin is not a democrat and not a liberal. I am quite convinced that Mr Putin is an opportunist.

NTV ad

Campbell: And unlike State TV – which is little more than a Kremlin mouth-piece – NTV has not been scared of saying so.

9:00

It backed Putin’s opponent in last year’s elections. And it’s continued to criticise the Government’s failings -- from the carnage in Chechnya to the heating crisis in Vladivostok.

Kiselyov insists Putin is shooting the messenger.

Kiselyov

Super:

Yevgeny Kiselyov

General Director, NTV

Kiselyov: You can have NTV shut down or at least taken over so that NTV would not report about corruption, crime, drugs or Chechen war. You will have virtual reality as if everything is okay, everything’s fine.

09:24

Parliament

Campbell: Putin already has this virtual reality in parliament. Last year his political party trounced the Communists in parliamentary elections. Since then, even the Communists have fallen in behind him, praising his aim to make Russia a great power.

09:43

The only real opposition is a small, liberal Party called Yabloko. Its leader, Grigory Yavlinsky, says Putin has made clear he will put down dissent.

10:00

Yavlinsky: The situation in Russia is such there is no need

10:11

Yavlinsky

for you to press every newspaper and every television channel and every radio station. It’s enough to make a demonstration, it’s enough to give the example, it’s enough to make a strong and well-known precedent and then everything is made in the same way, easily.

Oleg in meeting

Campbell: Reporter Oleg Lurye is a living demonstration of what can happen. His newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, was founded by a grant from the Gorbachev Foundation to be a beacon of independent reporting. But these days, he and his colleagues are working at their peril.

10:39

For years, Lurye doggedly investigated the murky financial deals of senior Kremlin officials. In December, he went on NTV to allege corruption against Putin’s chief of staff, Alexander Voloshin.

10:56

Lurye on NTV

Lurye: Where were the tax police when a company belonging to Voloshin took $5.5 million from the “Char” investment fund and gave it to a pyramid fund?

11:11

Lurye after attack

Campbell: Two days later, while returning home, he was attacked. Four men beat him till he lost consciousness, then carved up his face with a knife.

11:24

Lurye: See the scars all over. They just kept beating me up methodically for five to seven minutes – right here.

11:34

Newspaper article

Campbell: Today, Lurye counts himself lucky. Another reporter from his paper, Igor Dominkov, was recently murdered. Lurye believes the Kremlin was giving him a first warning.

11:44

Lurye holding knife

Lurye: And in the last several months I only wrote about three people -- and I spoke on TV about their corruption. They are Russia’s Prime Minister, Mr. Kasyanov, the Head of the Presidential Administration, Mr. Voloshin and the Prosecutor-General, Mr. Ustinov. They’re the three people.

11:57

Campbell: Are they to blame?

Lurye: I think that one of these three people decided to punish me.

12:27

Kremlin

Campbell: The Kremlin denies any involvement and it would be impossible to prove. But officials have certainly reacted to what many politicians see as the cruellest criticism of all -- ridicule.

12:35

TV puppet series set/excerpt from “Kukli”

12:48

Campbell: Every week, NTV presents a satirical program, called “Kukli”, meaning puppets. It’s been merciless to Putin since he came to power, portraying him as Napoleon, as Mr Hyde, even as a science-fiction monster.

And it’s been just as biting about his senior officials and their failure to solve the country’s problems.

Puppet 1: There are problems with power and heat.

Puppet 2: What?

Puppet 1: Heat and power.

Puppet 2: What problems?

Puppet 1: Well, there’s no heat and no power.

Campbell: Last year, Putin’s chief of staff, Alexander Voloshin, demanded they take the Putin puppet off air. For one week, the program complied, the Putin puppet was nowhere to be seen. Instead, he was portrayed as an invisible god, while Voloshin was Moses reading his commandments.

Voloshin puppet: Thou shalt not perjure thy neighbour… except on State TV.

* puppet: Did he lay down any commandments concerning my channel?

Voloshin puppet: Okay. Do you like the commandment?

Puppet: What shall I say?… Of course it is…

Voloshin puppet: Lord, Lord, they don’t like it.

Puppets: We like it very much. It’s an excellent commandment.

13:57

Lubamirov with puppet

Super:

Grigory Lubamirov

Writer/Director Kukli

Lubamirov: The Putin you see today is the fourth variant and in our opinion this is a nice, attractive, kind person – and we are surprised that the President doesn’t like it. See – an open face… blue eyes… a very pleasant face.

14:33

Kukli set

Campbell: With as many Russians watching Kukli as voted for Vladimir Putin, NTV has felt confident to continue screening this weekly satire.

15:00

But the station does have an Achilles heel, and the State has gone straight for it. It’s NTV’s owner, Vladimir Gusinsky.

Gusinksy at door stop

Gusinsky is one of Russia’s so-called oligarches, the tycoons who amassed fortunes under Boris Yeltsin buying State assets at rock-bottom prices. All of them made their money in dubious ways. But critics believe Gusinsky has been singled out because of NTV.

15:22

Yavlinsky

Super:

Grigory Yavlinsky

Opposition MP

Yavlinsky: And he’s the only one who’s being punished. That’s the problem. That is the point. All the oligarches took State money in this or other way. All oligarches were part of a machine which robbed the people. This is absolutely true. But only one of them used that money for something useful, for something which really means reform and he made it on a very good level of quality.

15:40

Paramilitary

Campbell: The raids began after Gusinsky had trouble repaying a $250 million loan from Gazprom. He was charged with fraud and fled to Spain. Kiselyov insists the charges are trumped up.

Kiselyov: Most of the debts that are attributed to Mr Gusinsky and his Media-Most group are

Kiselyov

due only later this year, sometimes next year and sometimes in a number of years from now.

16:37

NTV babushka dolls

Campbell: But Gazprom saw no reason to wait and began gobbling up his companies the way Russian children stack up dolls.

16:47

Campbell with dolls

Their first act was to use the debt to take a 46 per cent stake in NTV. Their next claim to the courts was for a further 19 per cent. That would enable them to swallow up the whole media empire, which in turn would mean the whole lot could be swallowed up by the Kremlin.

16:55

Putin in meeting with NTV journalists

But in talks with NTV journalists, President Putin claimed Gazprom would not interfere with editorial policy. He promised he would personally guarantee their independence.

Kiselyov: No, I don’t believe him at all. He was talking to us as if we were schoolchildren or kids from kindergarten that did not understand a simple thing about television business and political situation in the country. That was very disappointing as a matter of fact.

17:25

Kiselyov

He tried to convince us and most of us are working in the field of political journalism for many years that Gazprom is independent of the Kremlin, is independent from Russian State. Well, sometimes in certain matters, yes, but when it comes to real politic the Government immediately takes over.

Kiselyov in studio

Campbell: NTV has been using its airwaves to fight back. Every Sunday, Kiselyov takes a break from his duties as general director to present Itogi, Russia’s leading current affairs program. Almost every program criticises the raids.

18:31

Kiselyov: And now, about the abuse of power by high-ranking officials.

Campbell: Tonight Kiselyov reminds viewers that the Kremlin gave a half-million dollar apartment to the prosecutor investigating NTV.

Kiselyov: Others yet believe that the President will continue to use the prosecutor’s office as an instrument to fight his critics.

Campbell: While the authorities have been quick to act against NTV they are yet to investigate far more serious claims about Gazprom.

19:11

Fyodorov in office

A former finance minister, Boris Fyodorov, has accused Gazprom of siphoning hundreds of millions of dollars offshore.

Fyodorov: It has no money for investment,

19:20

Fyodorov

doesn’t really properly pay taxes. It doesn’t pay any serious dividends to investors. The share price is nowhere and lots and lots of suspicions about basically theft. And -

Campbell: On what scale?

Fyodorov: Well, scale is always been billions. Nothing concerning Gazprom is less than a billion dollars.

19:44

Campbell: And Gazprom is chaired by President Putin’s deputy chief of staff.

Campbell: Does it surprise you there’s not the sort of major investigation that we’re seeing against Media-Most with raids by men in masks and -

Super:

Boris Fyodorov

Former Finance Minister

Fyodorov: Definitely and I’ve been talking to quite a few government officials and I was expressing the same surprise.

20:04

Rally

Campbell: Many Russians find it surprising too. More than ten thousand turned up to a rally in Red Square to save NTV. The rock music and speeches blared across to the Kremlin, just metres from the stage.

20:15

*: History will not remember the idle talk and lies of the image-makers. It’s the destruction of free speech, dead bodies, corrupt officials and mercenary authorities that will be remembered.

Campbell: But four days later Gazprom teamed up with another minority shareholder and declared itself the new owner. It sacked both Kiselyov and Kritchevsky and appointed a new board. They both vowed to stay on and the staff vowed, on air, to stay with them.

*: They can remove the nameplates, and occupy the rooms of NTV – but it doesn’t mean that 350 journalists, editors and camera operators will follow their instructions.

Kiselyov addresses journalists

Campbell: Kiselyov has no doubt what will happen if the Kremlin asserts control.

21:23

Kiselyov: Then this means that this is the end of democracy and freedom of the press in Russia.

Campbell: Russian media is under attack more than at any time since the Communist coup. Those still trying to resist have no doubt who is pulling the strings.

Credits:

Reporter: Eric Campbell

Camera: Dave Martin

Editor: Stuart Miller

Producer; Armineh Cartland-Stuart