Code Proposed to Stem Journalists' Corruption

The Russian Journalists' Union has put forward a new ethics code with which every member of the union will have to comply or face ostracism from his colleagues.The new code bans hidden advertising and calls for a more responsible attitude to reporting. It is scheduled for approval by the congress of the Journalists' Union which will assemble in Moscow this week."Hidden advertising is like a cancer infesting Russian journalism now," Eduard Sagalayev, a secretary of the union, told a press conference Monday. "We're only one step away from advertising criminal structures, and since the boundaries of ethics have already been passed, people may not even notice when that last step is taken," he said.A draft of the ethics code, obtained by The Moscow Times, calls hidden advertising "a grave professional crime.""A journalist must not accept, directly or indirectly, any payment or reward from third persons for publishing any information or opinion," the draft says. "A combination of advertising and journalism is considered ethically impermissible."The code also introduces some political correctness, saying that a journalist must "refrain from any derogatory hints or comments concerning people's race, nationality, color, religion, social origin, sex, physical disability or illness."Officials of the Journalists' Union hope to introduce the ethics code as part of a massive media campaign to combat organized crime.Artyom Borovik, editor of the weekly paper Sovershenno Sekretno, said there was not a single journalist on the newspaper who had not been blackmailed or attacked by the mafia."The Mafia has seized power in this country," he said. "Now it's vying for control of the media, not only by blackmailing journalists but by placing in newspapers paid articles in favor of the criminal mobs."The situation is grave because of the extremly poor pay of many journalists, which makes them vulnerable to bribes.Full-time journalists even on major newspapers may earn as little as 40,000 ($20) rubles a month. Corruption of journalists has received attention in the Russian press, even though journalists have a reputation for not exposing their own sins.Borovik and other participants in the Monday press conference called for a mass action by the major Russian publications to take place early next month in order to draw public attention to the mafia's growing power.Pavel Gutiontov, a secretary of the Journalists' Union, said all newspapers should, on a certain day, leave blank spaces where they were planning to run crime reports."Then, when a reader opens Mos-kovsky Komsomolets and finds 80 percent of the front page blank, he will realize how much crime there is," Gutiontov said. He was supported by most participants in the press conference.The Journalists" Union representatives said journalists were on the front line of the war raging in the streets of Russian cities."This is a war and we have to fight our battle," Sagalayev said. "A la guerre comme ? la guerre."According to Gutiontov, wartime rules should apply to corrupt journalists."The first of us who gets caught should be punished by his colleagues so harshly that no one else should dare violate professional ethics for any kind of money," he said. He did not elaborate.