One of the few independent Russian newspapers to take a critical approach to the
Kremlin has closed down.
Journalists at the Novye Izvestiya newspaper published a letter on the front page
of Friday's final edition, saying they were no longer able to write what they
believed to be necessary.
In the last two years there has been a string of closures of opposition media
in Russia.
"New Izvestiya" was founded in 1997 by journalists who left Izvestiya over a takeover
battle The immediate reason for the closure of Novye Izvestiya was the refusal
of its journalists to work there any more. They claim that a reshuffle of the
paper's staff carried out recently by the board of directors was done so that
the paper would project a more pro-Kremlin line.
As such, the Russian authorities can claim to have had nothing to do with the
closure.
But this has been so in each of the cases in the past two years when a media
outlet has been shut down.
Soviet echoes
In April 2001, the television channel, NTV, was taken over by the media arm of
the gas giant, Gazprom, in what was supposed to be a business deal. The result
was effectively to censor the station.
A group of NTV's journalists set themselves up at the TV-6 station.
But that was closed down, even though the law used against it had ceased to function
by the time the case came to court.
The frequency now broadcasts TVS, which puts out a line fully supporting the Kremlin.
The Russian media was exciting and innovative in the years just after the collapse
of the Soviet Union.
But during Boris Yeltsin's second term as Russian president, from 1996, censorship
began to creep back in.
The loss now of Novye Izvestiya will be seen by many as another step back to the
controlled media of Soviet times.