Kasparov vs. Novosti

Garry Kasparov is doing his thing this week at the World Newspaper Congress in Sweden, asking world leaders to be tougher on Russia for freedom of expression and control over media. However, among the +200 press junket, there were of course reporters from Russia’s state-run news agencies, whom Garry directly confronted:

Kasparov accused one of the delegates to the newspaper meeting, editor-in-chief of the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti, Svetlana Mironyuk, of only publishing government propaganda. That prompted Evgeny Abov, deputy chief executive of the Russian government-controlled newspaper Rossijskay Gazeta, to speak out in her defense. “You have been unfair to Novosti,” Abov said. He said opposition leaders were given a voice in the news agency’s stories, and that it translates critical foreign news stories.

It is a rare defense for state-controlled media, especially in the wake of that ridiculous case of the “vanishing” television commentator…