MOSCOW, April 18 (Itar-Tass) —— Many maitres of Russian journalism would like to see a new person at the head of the country’s Public Television.
As the editor-in-chief of the Argumenty I Fakty weekly, Nikolai Zyatkov, has told Itar-Tass, “as far as Public Television as television of the future is concerned, the person who will be leading it should be not just a mass media professional, but someone who understands what sort of society we have and what sort of content it needs.”
“First and foremost, he or she must be a person free from old connections and liabilities, because the authorities would like to control the mass media anyway. For this reason a future head of Public Television should be a completely independent person,” Zyatkov said. He also added that the Public Television’s head must have a fresh outlook.
About mass media rumors concerning likely candidates for the position of Public Television chief, Zyatkov said that “Lysenko and Bystritsky (the president of the International Academy of Television and Radio and the chief of the state-run company the Voice of Russia, Andrei Bystritsky) have their own merits and great experience and authority.
“However, I believe that there must be a new type of person at the head of new television, like Listiev of Lyubimov,” Zyatkov said.
If the decision depended on him, Zyatkov would avoid appointing any of the current media chiefs to the post.
“There must be a person of great energy and not necessarily a professional media worker or chief of some mass media,” Zyatkov said.
The editor-in-chief of the daily Moskovsky Komsomolets Pavel Gusev agrees. He believes that a future Public Television chief should in the first place be aware what sort of content he is to create, and also feel the trends emerging in civil society.”
Gusev said that “the idea of appointing Lysenko is quite reasonable, because he is a professional not only in the field of television, but it remains unclear whether he will be able to do the job.”
Gusev believes that “Public Television should not necessarily be headed by some popular, high-profile media chiefs.”
“There must be a new personality, not a hackneyed one, but at the same time a person who will have in-depth understanding of the processes underway in the country,” Gusev said.
President Dmitry Medvedev on Tuesday declared he had signed a decree to create Russia’s Public Television. Russian mass media began to speculate about the likely contenders for the position of its chief. Andrei Bystritsky and Anatoly Lysenko were named as likely contenders.