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Vladimir Mukusev was the first to talk about repressions, the KGB, informers and defense lawyers, and his TeleBridge with Phil Donahue is still fondly remembered throughout the former USSR. Over his 35-year career in journalism, Mukusev has hosted live broadcasts, worked as a cameraman and director, hosted programs for youth and investigated the disappearance of his colleagues in conflict zones. And he was the first Soviet recipient of an Emmy award. As a deputy to the Supreme Soviet, he brought a court case against the Powers That Be, called for burying Lenin and initiated Russia’s first law on the mass media. Mikhail Gorbachev reportedly swore and threw his slippers at the television screen when Mukusev and his Vzglyad program came on. Today, Mukusev teaches journalism to St. Petersburg students. Un-loved by the Powers That Be, for more than 10 years he has been forbidden from appearing on national television. He was interviewed for Russian Life by Anastasia Osipova, during his visit to Rostov-on-Don to lead journalism master classes.

In one of your master classes, you said that “contemporary Russian television has prostituted itself.” What is your opinion of the situation with print media?

When it comes to Russian mass media, you really cannot use words like “all, no one, always, never.” Our media are as varied as the journalists who work in them. In the master class, I was talking about trends. The closer the media is to power, the more their situation is akin to that of a “client” or a “call girl.” This primarily relates to the biggest media outlets: the two major television channels. Across the rest of the media landscape, I could name dozens, if not hundreds, of excellent journalists, examples of true selflessness, bravery and professionalism. And we should not forget that, over the last 20 years, we have buried more than 200 of our colleagues – they died because they were journalists.

But let me return to your question. Of the multitude of newspapers, I would put Novaya Gazeta in first place. And I am not alone in this. It was the first Russian newspaper to which President Dmitry Medvedev granted an interview. While we might rejoice at this, we should remember two things that have been overlooked. First, the interview was given just before the president met with representatives of non-profit organizations. Second, the Russian president gave the interview to a Russian newspaper only after he had been in office for a year. Prior to this, there were dozens of interviews with foreign publications. So I have my doubts that the leadership is truly interested in dialogue with readers through print media. If a presidential interview with the electronic mass media is seen as an event, one with print media is seen as trivial. If only because of the relatively smaller size of their print run. Print is freer today than television. Just pick up any issue of Kommersant or Moskovsky Komsomolets. And I am certain that it is similar with regional media. Interest in print media will, I feel, only grow, despite difficult competition from the internet. The fact is that the internet is not yet ubiquitous. And the older generations have a greater level of trust in the printed word.

You have written, that at the end of the 1980s, you groped about in the dark, along the path called “journalism.”

That is not true. I wrote and spoke not about journalism, but about freedom of speech, which, at the end of the 1980s, we were of course in the dark about. And so was the leadership, who had proclaimed this freedom.

There were journalists before us, and good ones! This despite severe party censorship. Yet television journalism entered a new stage with Vzglyad. We said what no one before us could say. That is the main secret of our popularity. But all our “free-speeching” was founded on the experience of several generations of masterful Russian and Soviet  journalists.

OK, so we have a pretty good understanding of your journalism and that of today, but what about journalism of the 1990s?

With the collapse of the Soviet Union came the collapse of journalism as well, especially television journalism. From the ashes of Gosteleradio of the USSR arose dozens of new, independent television companies. In the provinces, and at Vzglyad as well, the new television was created by educated people, for whom commerce was far from the first thing on their minds. Yet those who besieged Central Television saw it merely as a business; they caught a whiff of big money, fast money. As a result, there was a “time warp.” Not dozens, but hundreds of television professionals appeared behind the walls of Ostankino [headquarters of Central Television]. The result is well known.

“Loathing” is far from the harshest word we can use to describe what any normal person feels when watching television today. And we should not forget that this is business paid for with blood: one has but to remember the murder on March 1, 1995, of Vladimir Listyev.

The only exception to this bloody history was the creation of NTV – something completely new in the world of television, in all senses. Vladimir Gusinsky succeeded in creating a truly unique team, which was quickly able to become the true Channel Number 1. And yet, their secret was very simple. NTV was first and foremost comprised of television professionals whose task was not to provide P.R. for the Powers That Be, but to create a quality television product. To create television for thinking people.

So when someone says to me today that Gusinsky did all this exclusively to serve his own commercial and political goals, I want to ask them: “Guys, you had the exact same opportunities. Financing, technology, human resources. And all of that is still here today. How is it you have not achieved the same thing in nearly 20 years?” Independence is the key word needed to answer this question. Modern Russian leaders choke on this word. As a result, NTV was annihilated. Yet, to this day, fragments of it – meaning real television stars – are lighting fires at various television stations…

What if suddenly Russia’s leaders decided to exploit the experience of perestroika era journalists? What sort of programs would be the first to air? In your – excuse me – “view” (vzglyad)!

I think that the first thing on screen would be Power itself. I have in mind, for example, Mr. President, who will not invite journalists in for a visit and answer prepared questions, but who will come onto a live program at least once a month to converse with the country.

But you will say that President Putin had hours-long call-in programs with the country. I am talking about something else. Standing between the president and the country was not journalists but “vetted comrades” carefully selected by the Kremlin administration. And the country was also represented by special people, who had memorized their questions. I hope that such shows have passed into history. Just recall what happened on television during the tragedies of Nord-Ost, Beslan or the wreck of the Kursk. The Powers That Be were cravenly silent.

Dialogue between a people and their leaders is vital, especially during crisis situations. In fact, it is more important to the leaders than to the people. Otherwise conflict is inevitable.

What is television being silent about right now?

You remember how a film crew from the local RTR affiliate asked permission to attend one day of our master classes? The correspondents asked so many interesting questions. The cameraman did his work so well. To some degree, it was also a master class. Yet what ended up on the air? They categorically deleted the last names Medvedev and Putin and the words “Party of Power.” Take note: this was not done by some evil little man in the Presidential Administration. It was done by our colleagues, by teachers, as awful as it may sound.

Television today is silent about what is really going on in the Kremlin, in the Duma, in the government. The little tidbits that percolate into news programs about corruption scandals, about the multimillions in embezzlements or bribes, categorically avoid the obvious fact that representatives of the “Party of Power” are always at the center of these scandals. Television not only needs to talk about these things, it needs to understand them, to analyze them and investigate them. And if they are not allowed to do this, then I have grave doubts about the President’s sincerity in calling for a battle against corruption.

The totality of party life is presented as an unqualified victory by United Russia on all fronts, before a background of incomprehensible polemics with an opposition known as the Communist Party. Yet in reality the fiercest battle for power is not between these ideological dwarfs, but between two Kremlin parties headed by the two Igor Ivanoviches: Sechin and Shuvalov. It is this battle which will set the path of our country’s development. The principle dispute between them, these liberals and conservatives, should be a subject for consideration by the mass media, and especially by television. But it is silent.

In general, it is easier to say what television is talking about, rather than what it is silent about. And what it talks about are the endless glamorous escapades of imaginary “stars,” about false sensations, about “global scale” events which no one knows about and which do not exist.

And how does our news differ from what is abroad?

We have almost no news on our central channels. We have propaganda. Television companies abroad provide real news. Without commentary, in pure form. And then, in special analytical programs, these news items are examined from all sides, various points of view are expressed, and the viewer chooses the side he has more confidence in. Here, everything is the exact opposite. They choose to treat certain actions of the leadership as news, actions which the leadership itself has organized. All attempts to understand what is going on are categorically shut down. Again, with but the rarest of exceptions. On NTV, it is the program “К барьеру” (“Challenged to Duel”), and the recently appeared “Честный понедельник” (“Honest Monday”). Even so, what they discuss and examine is not news, but pressing problems. That is certainly good, but it is not enough for people to learn the truth about what is going on inside and outside the country. This happened before in our history, during the era of Soviet power and the CPSU. And we well know what that led to.

And what about Russian mass media highlighting the actions of its colleagues?

I am against journalists appearing in the programs of their colleagues, especially if they are from the same channel. This is basically the result of lazy producers. Frequently, it is very young and under-educated boys and girls who consider it the highest attainment of their profession to acquire the cellphone numbers of this or that television superstar. Including journalists. As a result, on various programs on every channel your teeth are set on edge by the same two dozen television personalities, each of whom is appearing there as part of their own P.R. effort.

When we had Vzglyad, on each program we brought together at a minimum a dozen people, each of whom prior to that point was absolutely unknown, but all of whom proved how intellectually rich our country is, how talented and beautiful our people are. Today, we have just as many people like that. But they have to be sought out, invited, persuaded. This requires knowing a lot. One has to at least be a capable person. But today’s television doesn’t need this. It needs only ratings. And for that there is Zhirinovsky. Simple as that.

If you were given a program today, what would you start with? What program would you create?

I would create a program based on the work of students. I see plenty of work like this. Eighty percent is rather poor. Yet the other 20 percent are first class pieces by people completely lacking in self-censorship. What we journalists of the 1980s sometimes fought for months to obtain, “forcing out our inner slave,” these students reveal within minutes. This is an absolutely new, interesting and clear approach to resolving the problem.

I would bring together in one program journalists from three federal universities – Siberian, Southern and Far Eastern – and set up not so much a competition between them as a modern show. And the owners, authors and main participants would be those who will very soon become Russian journalism, in all senses of the word.

Whenever I hear conversations about some sort of special councils for television, it always turns on the main question: who are these people? They should be journalism teachers. And I would make them the main arbiters in this program. If they gave us access to the airwaves, the country would learn that our profession is a worthy one, being practiced by qualified people.  RL