The deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation Alexander Lebedev has bought on equal footing with the ex-president of the USSR Michael Gorbachev 49 % of shares of the edition. As there are no other significant investors it is actually a control package.
Lebedev is known as the actual owner of National reserve bank extremely well manipulated from the Kremlin. Gorbachev has no considerable funds of his own and thus is present in the project as vice-chairman.
He has not to be got used to it - at the stage of creation of "Novaya Gazeta" he already nominally was the head of its editorial staff. What made Dmitry Muratov to bring himself into such step – is also quite clear. There is no free money in the country that could be spent on oppositional media project and not to get thus in the Kremlin’s "black list". Oppositionists from those who have money are no longer in favour in the Kremlin. The market which would allow the newspaper exists without foreign injections has not been formed yet.
The Kremlin having no visible strategic prospects is in a condition of nervous uncertainty. It looks like everything’s under control but there is no confidence. Sensation is nasty as in a room with wadded walls - no resistance but the borders of possible are felt everywhere.
A unique way for the Kremlin to suppress neurasthenia is to start to supervise everything. Not almost everything but 100% of all.
However, there is still an Internet. You will be tired to death to buy up all and sundry. They are making experiment with power ways of the decision of possible problems. For example, there was an attempt to liquidate "technically" "Compromat.ru". It is very similar to the experiment. “Kremlin experimenters” are interested in the reaction of a society and media-community, it is interesting how it will work and whether it will in general.
To all appearances it will be difficult to work – the audience of “Compromat.ru” still exists, proposals from the other sources have become more numerous.
From the editorial staff of FORUM.ru we can announce that technically our stability is a little bit stronger than of "Compromat.ru" and we, charging from the bitter experience of others, organized additional measures for deducing our carriers out of limits of jurisdiction of the Russian Federation. WE don’t intend to sell the resource.
In the rest it is necessary only to reproduce information which was made public at the World forum of newspaper editors - lately the circulation of off-line press all over the world has fallen up to 2,5 %, the reason lays in the development of the Internet. The new data carrier possessing set of advantages and deprived of some lacks of former carriers appeared. The world has started talking about “the second crisis of Guttenberg", about the end of the mass-media epoch.
Likely it’s not really so - not so catastrophic and not so radically. But it is obvious to Russia- the real objective and independent information to all 100 % has gone into the Internet, the same happened (because of for the same reason) in the Ukrainetwo-three years earlier. It’s quite probable that the further will reecho with the events which have already happened there.
