Chairman of Information Policy Committee favors mass media privatization

Deputy Chairman of the Russian State Duma Information Policy CommitteeBoris Reznik told a reporter of RosBusinessConsulting that he favored thefull privatization of state mass media. According to the Duma official,"state should not own mass media at all, like it is in the US, England orSwitzerland". On the other hand, the Duma deputy believes that Russia isfar from this perspective, "since we have only recently said there is thepossibility of privatization, however, the state is just increasing thevolume of financing of its mass media, first of all television". Reznikalso reported a new version of the law on mass media that was prepared bythe deputy, was designed to restore order in the legislative field for massmedia. According to the State Duma deputy, this document "retains allliberal values of its forerunner and puts it in accordance with the lawsthat emerged later on". The Chairman of the Information Committee pointedout that the new version of the law needed to be approved in order toprevent such critical situations as the one that could have been observedwith NTV..