BY
Russian political talk shows have become circuses of
angry pensioners, cornered liberals, and camo-clad Ukrainian rebels. And
they’re more popular than ever.
SCOW — It’s a Sunday evening in early February,
three days before European leaders are scheduled to meet in Minsk for fresh
talks to end fighting in Ukraine’s east. On TV screens across the city,
Muscovites have tuned in for the weekly political talk show, Norkin’s List.
As the lights dim, the bespectacled, gray-haired host, Andrei Norkin, turns
to the camera.
“Will America lead the world into another war? How do we prevent the impending catastrophe? Those are the most popular
questions of the past week, and perhaps only a few hours remain to find
answers. Good evening, this is Norkin’s List.”
Norkin brings on his first two guests — pro-Kremlin public figure Sergey
Kurginyan and Ksenya Sobchak, a socialite and journalist at the embattled
opposition TV channel Rain.
From the outset, Norkin gives Kurginyan — a theater director and leader of
an ultranationalist neo-Soviet movement — the upper hand: “Is it true Merkel
and Hollande are simply scared America will unleash a new war in Europe and
then sit it out in typical fashion across the ocean?” he asks. Kurginyan has a
ready answer: “If rebel forces continue advancing despite American arms
shipments to Ukraine, then the next step is to bring in NATO forces,” he
responds. “That’s the path to world war. Considering it’s a war in Europe,
Hollande and Merkel are worried. And I don’t blame them.”
A round of applause rings out from the audience; sitting among them are
rebel fighters clad in camouflage and refugees from Ukraine’s east.
Norkin then turns to Sobchak, who stares the two men down through
wide-rimmed navy glasses from across the brightly lit platform. She’s asked to
speak — and quickly becomes a target.
“Mr. Kurginyan talks of the success of ‘our militia,’” she says. “I don’t
see war and the spilling of blood as success. For someone like me, who watches
international, independent TV reports by real, professional journalists, it’s
clear Russian armed forces are there, in Donetsk.”
The statement causes an uproar. Pro-Kremlin commentators sitting in the
front row of the audience are called on to attack Sobchak’s claim, while a
producer initiates applause after each statement. Sobchak demands a chance to
counter the onslaught, but Norkin instead gives the word to a Ukrainian woman
in the audience.
“What’s happening on our land cannot be described in words,” the woman
says, her voice drowning out Sobchak’s ongoing protests. “We’ve been invaded.
Americans and Poles are fighting us. Fascists are destroying our homes and
killing our children!”
Sobchak begins to respond, only to be cut short again by another audience
member claiming to be a Donetsk native. “Planes were flying overhead, my
3-year-old son and I didn’t know where to hide,” she cries. “Americans came,
then Poles. They don’t even speak Russian. Go and see with your own eyes and
then talk! You have no shame!” she screams at Sobchak.
Feeling sidelined, Sobchak threatens to leave, but now Norkin turns on her.
“Now listen to me!” he shouts. “When I was a guest on Rain, and you didn’t give
me a chance to speak, I didn’t leave. Now I’m the boss of the program, so let’s
cut the provocations.”
The onslaught continues: A Ukrainian politician says the U.S.-backed
government in Kiev exists on war. An analyst at the Russian Academy of
Sciences’ Institute for U.S. and Canadian Studies cites a White House document
identifying Russia as the United States’ No. 1 threat.
Toward the end of the show, an audience member is introduced as a
representative of the breakaway Donetsk People’s Republic’s Defense Ministry.
His camouflage jacket decorated with war medals, he claims American arms have
long been used on Ukrainian front lines.
“The cause of this war is the threat to the United States. Not from the
Donbass, which has risen against the junta that has seized power in Kiev, but
from Russia’s national leader Vladimir Putin. He is the target of this war,” he
says.
A round of applause rings out. Sobchak sighs.
* * *
Halfway along Pravdy Street, in north Moscow, stands a neoclassical
building from the 1930s. In its Soviet heyday, this Stalinist
structure served as the House of
Culture for employees of Pravda (“Truth”), the Communist Party’s official
mouthpiece, whose imposing former headquarters across the street now house the
bulk of Russia’s state-owned press. Today the building has lost most of its
grandeur: Time has chipped chunks off the relief of cheerful workers draped
above the four pillars that adorn its façade, and the small square leading up
to its entrance is filled with cracks. But inside its crumbling walls, along a
corridor to the left, stands a door marked “viewers’ hall.” Several dozen
pensioners stand patiently here every Sunday afternoon, waiting to be called
into the brightly lit set where slickly produced U.S.-style talk shows like Norkin’s List are filmed. The 300 rubles ($5) they
get for attending just about covers the commute and any lunch expenses, and
many profess a strong interest in current events. Most dress specially for the
occasion — women in heavy make up, men in their best suits. Taking their seats
on benches that line the perimeter of the set, they wait patiently for the
spectacle to begin.
Since the start of the Ukraine crisis in early 2014, news-related talk
shows have proliferated on Russia’s major TV channels, all of which are
state-owned. Today’s shows are a far cry from their predecessors. In the 1990s,
drab studio discussions like We and Press Club would attract audiences eager to air nostalgic views about the Soviet
Union and decry the stark wealth divisions that emerged with its collapse. In
the boom years after 2000, shows like The Big Wash and For Men Only catered to the new Russian middle class, with discussions on
lifestyle subjects from fashion to mid-life crises.
In early 2012, limits were put in place for Russia’s talk shows. That
February, following major anti-government protests across the country, Russian
dailyIzvestiya reported that political programs would
be temporarily suspended on the major channels. Dmitry Kiselev, then-deputy
head of All-Russia State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company, the main
federal media holding, told the newspaper that the decision was taken to prevent
“the risk of false interpretations” during the election campaign. After Vladimir Putin’s return to the
Kremlin for a third term as Russia’s president, interest in balanced discussion
disappeared, and emotions and aggressive proselytization became the norm, said
Anna Kachkaeva, professor of media and communications at Moscow’s Higher School
of Economics.
A recent spike in official rhetoric against the United States also changed
the tone of Russian TV programming. Since Russia’s involvement in Ukraine and
the resulting standoff with the West, anti-American sentiment has markedly
risen. Political talk shows have closely conformed to the incendiary tone of
news coverage, reflecting an increased focus on international events.
By the middle of
last year, these talk shows, together with extended news reports, dominated
national TV screens with almost nonstop coverage of the conflict in Ukraine. According
to Kachkaeva, news reports would repeat four times between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. on
Channel One and Russia 1, the country’s two main channels. The schedule would
be regularly interrupted with additional 60-second newsreels titled News of the
Hour, featuringreports from the frontline of the
separatist insurgency.
Evening prime time
was taken up by one hour to 90-minute news shows like Time and News,
filling viewers in on the latest atrocities allegedly committed by the
Ukrainian army against Russian speakers in that country’s east, and after 10
p.m. these would transition directly to political shows like Politics on the
Channel One or Evening With Vladimir Solovyov on Russia 1.
In September, a new daily talk show, Time Will Tell, replaced other
typical daytime programming — detective series, family shows, and soap operas —
on Channel One. That same month, Russia’s third-most popular channel NTV
launched daily news show Anatomy of the Day and Norkin’s
List.
Since Russia’s
bombing campaign in Syria began last September, some of the focus has shifted
from Ukraine to the “anti-terrorist operation” and the recent standoff with
Turkey over its downing of a Russian fighter jet. Each time a major
international news story surfaces, channels air extended “special editions” of
talk shows like Evening With Vladimir Solovyov.
In blurring the
line between news and entertainment, the shows have supplied the Kremlin with a
convenient — and cheap — platform for official propaganda, experts say:
According to Vasily Gatov, former head of development at Russian state news
agency RIA Novosti and a visiting fellow at the USC Annenberg Center in
California, the average cost per episode rarely exceeds $15,000, where other
daytime programming usually costs four to five times more. Political talk shows
are also time-flexible, running as long as the channel needs to fill gaps in its
programming — episodes of Evening With Vladimir Solovyov and Special Correspondent regularly
run over two and a half hours.
More than a dozen
political talk shows air regularly on Russia’s three main channels, and they’re
capitalizing on a clear upward trend in the popularity of TV as a news source
among Russians. According to data from media research firm TNS, the time Russians
spend watching TV rose in 2014 for the first time in over five years, with 72 percent tuning in to federal
channels daily. News and analytical programs received a 9 percent boost in
popularity — by far the largest across the 10 categories surveyed. The average
audience per episode for Sunday Evening With Vladimir Solovyov,
Russia’s most popular show, rose from 1.87 million in 2013 to 3.3 million in
2015, according to TNS. Between 2013 and 2014, Politics saw
its viewing figures more than double from 1.1 million to 2.3 million.
* * *
Nationalist
Kremlin supporters have become an ever-larger part of studio audiences in
recent years, and they are routinely directed by production assistants
to support the dominant narrative with applause. Meanwhile, most
participants now undergo careful screening. Representatives of ethnic
minorities or religions are often invited as guests, but usually only if their
perspective aligns with the government’s preferred narrative. One frequent
participant is Avigdor Eskin, a Russian-Israeli whom a 2015 report by the
Euro-Asian Jewish Congress described as an “infamous pro-Russian spin doctor.”
In a June 10 talk show appearance on Special Correspondent, heclaimed the Kiev
regime is leading a revival of Nazism in Europe and equated Russian speakers in
Ukraine’s east to Jews murdered by Nazi Germany in the Holocaust.
Then there are the
dissenting voices, like Sobchak. Where in years past the shows would
occasionally invite opposition politicians like the recently murdered Boris Nemtsov, now they tend to
feature what Kachkaeva describes as “approved liberals” who are unlikely to
gain viewers’ support. These Western journalists, supporters of Kiev’s
government, or Turkish journalists brought on to “explain” Ankara’s actions,
serve as foils, and often punching bags, for the other participants and the
studio audiences.
One such
commentator is Valery Semenenko, who heads the diaspora group Ukrainians of
Moscow and advances what he deems Kiev’s perspective on relations with Russia.
Semenenko is in high demand. He first started receiving invitations to appear
on Russia’s talk-shows after Ukraine’s Orange Revolution in 2004, but said the
bias and level of aggression has markedly risen in the past two years. He
generally receives no money for attending, although he claimed producers have
offered up to 5,000 rubles ($75) on occasions when he declined. “I shouldn’t
go, really,” he said. But I’m trying to use the smallest opportunities to be
heard.” Last October, when he suggested Russia is militarily supplying the
rebel insurgency in east Ukraine during one appearance, Semenenko was quickly
shouted down and called a provocateur paid by the U.S. government to spread
lies.
A fellow guest on
the show told Semenenko he’d be glad if the Ukrainian was shot on his next
visit home.
The discussions
may appear to be one-sided, but they are not pre-scripted. Most shows go out
live to Russia’s Far East, which is eight hours ahead of the Moscow studio
audience, and repeat at intervals across the country’s 11 time zones. Producers
are keen to give at least the impression of open debate, and many participants
— especially those invited to voice the official narrative — insist the debate
is impartial.
Veteran TV
personality Maksim Shevchenko launched Point in September,
a program that combines news reports with in-studio discussion. He is adamant
that editorial policies on Russian TV are no more restrictive than those in
Ukraine. Shevchenko cited his appearance on the Ukrainian talk show Shuster
Live in February with right-wing Ukrainian populist Oleh Lyashko. The
resulting clash, during which Lyashko called Shevchenko a Russian propagandist
and Shevchenko responded by branding Lyashko a murderer who will soon answer
before a war tribunal for his support of Kiev’s military operation, caused a
scandal which led to the temporary suspension of that show’s TV run.
“Every country has
its own editorial policy, and so do we,” he said. “In the past year the
discussion has been relatively open and free, and the Ukrainian point of view,
wherever possible, is presented. But Ukrainian politicians rarely want to
appear,” he said. He claims Ukrainian politician Yulia Tymoshenko declined his
invitation to appear on Point.
“I see every talk
show as a sort of performance, with real people instead of actors,” he said.
Shevchenko simply serves as the director, he added, asking one to chime in here
or prompting another to comment there. And participants, including critical
ones, are rarely hard to come by.
Many are aware of
the odds stacked against them. Among them is American Michael Bohm, a long-time
Moscow resident and former opinion editor at English-language publication the Moscow
Times. A fluent Russian speaker, Bohm has been a permanent fixture on
Russia’s talk show scene since 2013.
By his own
estimates, Bohm attends on average three shows a week, and more when breaking
news happens. The week of the Paris terrorist attacks on Nov. 13, 2015, he was
a guest on five talk shows. He insisted he doesn’t accept all offers to attend,
and was not willing to disclose whether he gets paid to appear.
Bohm is hardly an
audience favorite. In November 2013, after he called Russia’s attitude to gays
“primitive” on an episode of Special
Correspondent, he was physically threatened by a fellow
participant and showered with boos, whistles, and shouts from the crowd. The
Russian-language Internet is filled with video clips of “the American puppet” and “the U.S.’s new clown,” showing Bohm
being ridiculed by fellow talk show guests. A clip of him clashing with host
Vladimir Solovyov on talk show Duel on Oct. 8, 2015, has been watched
over 1 million times.
Bohm still
believes his voice is being heard. His principle, he said, is that those who
oppose the Kremlin’s narrative should exploit every opportunity to express
their views. As long as federal channels offer them a chance to voice their
opinions, they should take advantage — notwithstanding the slanted and unfair
rules of the game.
“Yes, the deck is
stacked against us. We’re outnumbered, and the host gives preference to the
pro-Kremlin side. But there’s no censorship. I can say whatever I want, as long
as I’m not interrupted and my words aren’t twisted by my opponents…. There are
cases when my position is heard, and I get messages from viewers who support
it. Even if I reach people 20 percent of the time, I still consider it a
victory — if I did not participate the percentage would be zero,” he said.
Many of Bohm’s
friends in the opposition disagree. Alexander Shumilin, at Moscow’s Institute
for U.S. and Canadian Studies, used to appear alongside Bohm on talk shows but
said he stopped when he realized the danger of continuing. He believes Bohm and
others like him are being exploited — in part out of a craving for the
spotlight.
“Michael is useful
as he can be presented as an ignorant carrier of the U.S. mentality. He doesn’t
dig deep; he’s not able to shout. He’s an idealist who speaks the truth, truth
that can easily be shaped. That’s why he loses. I told him, ‘Drop your Western
tolerance, you’re at a circus,’ but he hasn’t changed,” he said.
Shumilin believes
the climate of opinion in Russia is becoming increasingly dangerous, and those
who publicly voice views unacceptable to the majority are being painted as
enemies of Russia, an image that spreads across the country with the help of
TV. The
solution, he thinks, is to refuse to engage.
“I’ve decided to
stop walking this minefield,” he said. “With time, it’s becoming more
dangerous. There’s now a category of people infected by TV, people ready to use
aggression. The aim of people like me should be to break people’s addiction to TV,
to show the malignancy of such programs. And that can only be done by
boycotting them.”
* * *
In the aftermath
of her appearance on Norkin’s List, Sobchak would do just that. She
took to her million-plus followers on Twitter and declared that she was “shaking.”
“Such a massive
dose of lies is dangerous for your health,” she wrote. “Poor, poor people.” She
added later that she’ll never again appear as a guest on Russia’s federal
channels.
Since that
episode, Norkin’s List has been cut from NTV’s schedule. The
Sobchak episode provoked widespread controversy, with articles in the national
press accusing her of creating hysterics on the show
and deliberately causing a scandal to gain attention. In a radio interview,
popular talk show host Vladimir Solovyov ridiculed NTV’s decision to invite
Sobchak, comparing it to having a fashion designer or pop singer at a political
debate. “I could understand if you were discussing the hard life of
transvestites or something,” he said. “But when you have a serious political
program — you invite that?”
But it was poor
ratings, rather than controversial tactics, that proved the downfall for Norkin’s
List. In the meantime, guests on Russia’s political talk shows rotate, and
new shows like Shevchenko’s Point spring up to fill the gap.
The topics also
move with the times. Stalemate in the Donbass region has relegated Ukraine to
the periphery, shifting the spotlight to Russia’s latest successes in Syria.
The threat from terrorism and radical Islam has replaced talk of “fascism” and
“genocide.” But international topics — and chief among them the alleged
American threat — continue to monopolize debate.
Inside the
glittering talk show studios on Pravdy Street, Bohm and others continue to play
the game. And many, like Semenenko, admit the spotlight is hard to leave. “I
say no,” he said. “But they persuade me anyway.”
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