Mediaboss Marketing

Vedomosti

Demyan Kudryavtsev

Two high-ranking media executives have been pushed out of their jobs in shake-ups that both said were business driven, but that still raised worries among some observers about politically motivated censorship.

Kommersant holding company CEO Demyan Kudryavtsev was fired, it was announced Thursday just months after the companys owner, Alisher Usmanov, sacked an outspoken editor at Kommersant Vlast under reported pressure from the Kremlin.

Bolshoi Gorod editor-in-chief Phillip Dzyadko also unexpectedly announced Thursday that he would resign as head of the popular lifestyle magazine.

Both said that politics had nothing to do with their departures, but in his farewell column published Thursday, Dzyadko painted a bleak picture of the media landscape.

In the first summer month of Putins third term, a purge of sources of independent media is taking place in front of everybodys eyes, he wrote.

Kudryavtsev said his exit from Kommersant was largely driven by new business priorities.

Its not a corporate secret, he said in an interview with business news website Slon.ru. Its just that people who have proved their success in media have been given the task of developing strategies for growth. There is no need to seek a direct political connection.

But Galina Timchenko, editor-in-chief of Lenta.ru, told Openspace.ru that Kudryavtsevs dismissal means that they are shutting off our channels of access to independent information.

Read this article:
Media Shake-Up Stirs Worries of Political Control