RIA Novosti

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RIA Novosti

logo
legal form state
founding April 3, 1961
resolution 2013
Seat Moscow , Russia
Branch media
Website ria.ru

The Russian Agency for International Information RIA Novosti ( Russian РИА Новости ; German transcription: RIA Novosti ) was one of the largest state news agencies in Russia and the former Soviet Union . It emerged from the Soviet Information Office in 1961 and was based in Moscow . As of the end of 2013, RIA Novosti was transferred to the new state-owned company Rossija Sevodnja as part of a three-month restructuring alongside the foreign radio station Voice of Russia .

The former German website of RIA has been redirecting to the newly founded Sputnik news portal since the end of 2014 . The Russian website is still active under its own name.

Companies

The focus of the reporting is on news from Russia and the other CIS countries. The agency also disseminates official announcements from the Russian government, ministries and agencies, and social organizations. Out of consideration for its international customers and their credibility, RIA had endeavored to provide balanced reporting and until its restructuring in 2013/2014 also offered “a forum for controversial opinions”. Svetlana Wassiljewna Mironjuk was the general manager from January 24, 2003 to December 9, 2013 .

The agency was merged with the foreign broadcaster Voice of Russia by decree in December 2013 to form the new state-run international news agency Rossiya Sevodnja ( Russia today ). The main focus of Rossiya Sevodnja is to work “on a more positive perception of Russia”. The name Ria Novosti should be retained as a brand according to the information at the time. However, foreign RIA Novosti websites have been redirecting to the newly founded Sputnik news portal since the end of 2014 .

The agency has an extensive network of correspondents in the Russian Federation, the Commonwealth of Independent States and in more than forty other countries. Every day it disseminates socio-political, economic, scientific and financial information in Russian and six European languages ​​( English , German , French , Portuguese , Spanish , Serbian ), but also in Persian , Arabic , Japanese and Chinese on the Internet and via electronic news media .

RIA Novosti serves as a venue for press events. The agency has the largest photo service in the country and a photo database with more than 600,000 images. The agency's target group includes foreign media, companies, investment companies and banks, embassies, government and state organizations and a wide range of interested parties.

history

Editor-in-chief of RIA Novosti Swetlana Mironjuk with Ayan Midani, Minister for Culture and Information of Saudi Arabia, 2007

In 1961 - during the Khrushchev era - the Sowinform office was restructured into the Novosti press agency (APN for short). It developed into the leading information and journalistic organ of the Soviet social organizations. On April 3, 1961, the agency's statutes were adopted. According to the statutes, the APN had the task of disseminating authentic information about the Soviet Union abroad and acquainting the Soviet public with the life of the peoples of other countries. In fact, it was a propaganda tool during the Cold War until perestroika .

The APN was represented in more than 120 countries. It published 60 illustrated newspapers and magazines in 45 languages ​​with a total circulation of 4.3 million copies. In the Federal Republic of Germany the monthly magazine "Soviet Union Today" appeared. The layout, photos and texts translated into German were sent from Moscow to the Cologne editorial office, where they were stylistically processed. The magazine itself was printed in Remscheid's Loose-Durach print shop and sent to subscribers. APN-Verlag published over 200 books and brochures with a total circulation of around 20 million copies a year.

In April 1983 the Swiss Federal Council closed the Novosti office in Bern in the course of the “Novosti Affair” and expelled the Soviet editor-in-chief from the country because two Swiss Novosti employees, Philippe Spillmann and Martin Schwander , had stood out as the organizers of a peace demonstration. The Geneva office was not closed.

On July 27, 1990, the APN became the Novosti news agency (IAN). IAN was represented in 120 countries around the world and published 13 illustrated magazines and newspapers. In September 1991 the IAN was renamed the Russian News Agency (RIA) Novosti .

From 1993 until its dissolution at the end of 2013, the RIA Novosti was a state information and analysis agency. As such, it was part of the state media holding WGTRK .

On August 10, 2008, the RIA Novosti web server was hacked. That Sunday and the following day there was virtually no access to the news agency's website for many hours. After the escalation in South Ossetia , many Georgian websites were also attacked.

Over the years, Svetlana Mironjuk had transformed RIA Novosti into a modern, mature and influential agency that had also employed liberal journalists since 2003, according to live reports from the anti-Putin protests in 2012 on the website.

Restructuring by presidential decree 2013

On December 9, 2013, Russian President Putin signed the decree “Measures to Improve the Effectiveness of the Operation of the State Media” on the dissolution of both RIA Novosti and Russia's foreign broadcaster Voice of Russia . In their place, a new state news agency called Rossiya Sevodnya International News Agency ( Russia Today ) was established. This measure was seen in connection with the attempt by the Russian government to influence reporting on the Winter Olympics in Sochi in February 2014 in its favor. Unnamed experts wondered whether saving money or realigning Russia's self-image in the face of increasing tensions with the West were further reasons for the restructuring. The general director of this new state agency was the journalist Dmitri Kisselev . On the evening of December 9, 2013, Svetlana Mironjuk announced her resignation as General Director of RIA Novosti.

Criticism of the 2013 restructuring

The decision to close RIA Novosti as an independent agency in December 2013 drew international criticism from media experts.

The restructuring of the Russian state media was assessed by Mascha Lipman, an employee of the Moscow Carnegie Center , as generally disadvantageous because RIA Novosti in particular had previously been known for its efforts to have taken an objective position for domestic and foreign policy reporting.

In a joint statement, the International and the European Federation of Journalists condemned the Putin decree. IFJ President Jim Boumelha pointed out that RIA Novosti had endeavored to achieve balanced reporting and should now apparently be replaced by an agency that was "part of Putin's propaganda apparatus". He described this as a "deeply worrying situation" for press freedom in Russia. In an open letter of protest from March 2014, the Committee to Protect Journalists, which campaigns for press freedom around the world, described the winding up of RIA Novosti as the beginning of a series of Putin's measures to restrict press freedom.

See also

Web links

Commons : RIA Novosti  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Klaus-Helge Donath: The Propaganda Mega Machine . In: taz.de. December 11, 2013. Retrieved December 13, 2013.
  2. ↑ Russian news agency RIA Novosti closed down , BBC, December 9, 2013
  3. ↑ a b Kai Ludwig: Voice of Russia will be liquidated ( Memento of the original from December 14, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.radioeins.de archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . In: RBB Radio Eins media magazine. December 9, 2013. Updated December 13, 2013. Accessed December 14, 2013.
  4. ↑ Barbara Kerneck: Putin's chat bags . taz.de, May 12, 2014, accessed on May 12, 2014.
  5. ↑ The Friedrich Affair or: Lies have short legs. Gray book on the closure of the Novosti office in Bern. Swiss Peace Movement, Basel 1983
  6. ^ Marc Tribelhorn: Bundesbern in turmoil: Puppeteers from Moscow In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung from June 12, 2017
  7. ↑ RIA Novosti experiences severe hacker attack
  8. ^ How the Media Became One of Putin's Most Powerful Weapons , The Atlantic , April 21, 2015; "Vladimir Putin is a news junkie."
  9. ^ Gesine Dornblüth : Russia: Putin's new media strategy, in: Deutschlandfunk from December 14, 2013, accessed on May 25, 2014
  10. ^ Announcement from RIA Novosti on December 9, 2013
  11. ↑ Russia is forging a big news agency ( Memento from December 11, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), message on tagesschau.de on December 9, 2013
  12. ↑ FAZ.net: Bach: "Gauck's rejection has no political reasons"
  13. ^ A b Fred Weir: Kremlin Spin: Does Media Overhaul Herald New Propaganda Push? . In: The Christian Science Monitor. December 9, 2013. Retrieved September 1, 2013.
  14. ↑ Rossiya Segodnya agency offers itself as an alternative to western mainstream media, in: RIA Novosti of March 31, 2014, accessed on May 24, 2014
  15. ↑ IFJ / EFJ Concerned for Future of Staff at Ria Novosti Following Scandalous Closure . IFJ announcement of December 11, 2013, accessed May 24, 2014.
  16. ↑ Putin should reverse steps to restrict independent press . Open letter from the CPJ dated March 20, 2014, accessed May 24, 2014.