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Russian Communications Ministry denies “positive information vacuum” on TV

MOSCOW, October 23. /TASS/. There is no “positive information vacuum” on Russian federal television channels, Russian Deputy Communications Minister Alexey Volin said Thursday at a meeting of a Federation Council commission on media legislation improvement.

The meeting was devoted to a proposal by senator Igor Chernyshev to discuss Russia’s information policy due to an excess of negative reports on television.

Chernyshev was prompted to make the suggestion by media coverage of numerous traffic accidents that occurred in Siberia due to the first snowfall. Among others, Tomsk Region Governor Sergey Zhvachkin had an accident.

“Speaking that we will have holy cows that no one will ever be able to touch is certainly not the information policy that the federal center plans to stick to,” Volin said. He said federal TV channels are “one of the tools of transferring information on what is going on in the regions, both positive and negative.”

The head of the provisional commission, first deputy chairman of the Federation Council’s international affairs committee, Vitaly Ignatenko, admitted in turn that senators are concerned about television channels’ increased interest in negative aspects of life.

“It’s necessary to think how regional television companies can influence the positive image of our country or some region,” Ignatenko said.

“When the work of federal channels is planned and information comes from branches, we don’t select to show bad things and not show good things,” All-Russia State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company international affairs department director Pyotr Fyodorov said.