Cabinet: TV Turns People Into Idiots
Moscow Times, Dec 17, 2004, p. 1
By Nabi Abdullaev
Staff Writer

A Cabinet meeting meant to fashion government policies about culture degenerated into a heated squabble Thursday, with Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov calling the media too negative and Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov saying television is turning the population into idiots.

The meeting, which ended with Fradkov ordering Culture and Press Minister Alexander Sokolov to draft legislation to boost patriotism among young people, provided an indication that the government is seeking even more control over the media.

Ivanov, who was the first to vent his anger, denounced television programs and popular literature.

"Just look at what they show on television, vulgarities like 'Anshlag,' for example," he said, referring to a popular show in which aging comedians crack Soviet-era jokes and make fun of one another. "The moronization of the people must be stopped."

Ivanov, however, praised as progress a slew of recent television movies that portray the military in a good light.

The defense minister directed his next salvo at contemporary literature, which he called "the grime and slime that fills bookstands and libraries." He recalled a military investigation of two conscripts -- twin brothers -- who deserted their barracks outside Moscow last month and killed two police officers. "We checked their library cards. The last book they had read was 'To Kill a Cop,'" Ivanov said. "They finished it and went for it."

He said he does not know of any contemporary Russian author worth reading.

Backing Ivanov, Fradkov said that "there is too little of the positive and too much of the imposed negative" in media and literature. "We must analyze the reason for it: Is it a provocation, or an undervaluation of our present and, more importantly, our future?" he said.

Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu accused Sokolov of spending too much time on administrative matters since being plucked from the rector's seat at the Moscow State Conservatory to run the Culture and Press Ministry in March, and said he should have been focusing on plans to develop culture. "This is the job that the state pays you to do," said Shoigu, who is also a leader of the United Russia party, which controls the State Duma. "Where is your list of new bills? Give them to us, and we will push them through. We are the government, after all, and not a philharmonic society."
[...]
Crooner-turned-Duma-deputy Iosif Kobzon told the meeting that a lack of laws about culture makes it impossible for the government to pursue consistent policies and to stand up to vulgarity. "When we tried to adopt a bill to limit the distribution of erotic materials, some people with money hired bums to demonstrate for a desyatka [10 ruble note] each, and they carried signs reading, 'Hands Off Sex,'" he said.

Sokolov defended his work, saying the ministry does not have the money to make significant changes and lacks the legal muscle to fight the market forces that, he said, spread vulgarity in the media. He said any decline in culture is a reflection of the social hardships of ordinary people.

"We cannot tell the media, 'Do this or do that,'" he said. "You all see how 'Anshlag' taunts us but still remains on the screen.

"But this is mad money," he said, referring to advertising dollars, "and I don't see any way to influence [programming]."

Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref said television executives need to keep values in mind when they consider programming, but he warned against censorship. "We must avoid simple decisions such as, 'I don't like soccer so I'll propose a ban on soccer,'" he said.
[...]
As far as raising patriotism among young people, Sokolov said Soviet-style ideological approaches would no longer work because contemporary youth have new worries of finding work after graduation and wondering whether their parents and grandparents can make it on their salaries and state pensions.

Promising to provide more money for culture, Fradkov told Sokolov to prepare a program to help raise youth in a spirit of patriotism, and to present a detailed proposal on how to develop culture to the Cabinet by June. "Apart from drunkards and bums, people have an understanding about life, and these feelings should be kept in mind," he said.

Sokolov said the ministry will have 10 bills ready by the deadline.