Controversial News Story Airs in Russia

November 2, 2011 | 125 Comments

A controversial Chechen news story aired on a national television broadcast on Sunday night in parts of Russia according to Time.

The controversial piece was 10 minutes long story about a man who was kidnapped and tortured by men in uniform because he had criticized the Chechen police over the Internet.

People of Russia are not used to seeing this type of news on their television. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin gained control of the leading broadcasters in Russia back in the early 2000s, allowing only certain stories to be displayed on national television according to Time.

By the time the broadcast made it to Moscow and European Russia, the report had been changed to a story about ballet.”The story was shown in the Far East, after which the management decided to send it back for revision and fact checking. This is common practice in news editorial bureaux,” a spokeswoman for NTV, the channel that ran the controversial story, said, according to Reuters.

However, human rights campaigners and journalists see the decision to pull the story as a massive attack on the freedom of speech in Russia, according to Reuters.

The reporters of the Chechen story did not have much faith it would air but wanted to try anyways. The Russian Committee Against Torture activist Alexander Nemov told Time, “[The reporters] told us they were taking a big risk. They said there wasn’t much chance of the program airing in Moscow. They just wanted to try it.”

The reporters were right.

125 thoughts on “Controversial News Story Airs in Russia”

Collin Sims on November 2, 2011 1:34 pm
I really like this story, it shows how the power of freedom of speech is fading in parts of the world due to this digital frontier.
Eric Lagatta on November 2, 2011 1:37 pm
It’s good to see news outlets in Russia daring to air stories that are critical of the goverment.
Sara Shipley Hiles on November 6, 2011 1:58 pm
Very interesting, newsworthy topic. Good attribution in lead.

Need comma before according to

See anything wrong here? The controversial piece was 10 minutes long story

Need a “the” and attribution here: People of Russia are not used to seeing this type of news on their television.