THE PRESS in Russia is in a deep, crisis which goes much deeper than biased coverage of the Russian presidential election.
That coverage was only a symptom of the crisis and often actually obscured the media's role in President Yeltsin's Russia and the fact that the press, radio and television, differ very little in how they report from the way they did under the previous regime.
The Russian media's coverage of the presidential election was partisan at best. They not only gave far more coverage to Mr Yeltsin, but on occasions berated their own readers for supporting the Communist candidate, Mr Gennady Zyuganov, in the first round.
Some journalists actually defended this, suggesting that journalists simply found it difficult not to support the candidate who would ensure there was no return to the "old ways".
This argument, however, implied that once the election was over, the media would return to being free and fearless.
Mr Alexey Voinov is legal adviser to the Glasnost Defence Foundation, Russia's leading human rights group. It monitors abuses and fights for press freedom.
At a seminar on Media Law and Journalists Rights in the city of Perm in the Urals area, Mr Vwnov held up a book nearly two inches thick listing abuses of press freedom in Russia for the past year. He also spoke of the media's own failure to understand the media law, and how the media could defend themselves with a better understanding of the law. He was also critical of the media's own failure to change in the face of the new society.
However, none of the media's failures matched the authorities use of legal loopholes, economic pressure and intimidation to pressurise the media and infringe press freedom. Russia's Law of Mass Media is, on paper, a liberal and progressive piece of legislation. It attempts to ensure press freedom and a smooth transition from one society to another.
However, its very liberalism has been a weakness, because any body or organisation can found a newspaper, which has meant both federal and regional authorities are able to fund and dominate the media and can establish media organisations.
The same authorities have been able to use loopholes to effect massive pressure on newspapers and introduce a virtual licence system for access to information.
Massive subsidies also allow the authorities to pressurise the media with the threat of withdrawing funding, or even founding a newspaper and diverting the funding to the new company.
Information is sometimes sold to newspapers by public bodies and state and federal officials charge for interviews.
The profile of the media, especially the press, has changed out of all recognition over the past five years. The Moscow newspapers, with circulations measured in several million, are now almost confined to the capital and have been ousted in nearly all local markets. At the same time as the overall circulation of newspapers has fallen from 100,847,000 in 1991 to 30,000,000 last year, according to figures from the International Federation of Newspaper Publishers, the number of titles has increased by 80 per cent. Within this highly competitive market, some newspapers are struggling with circulations of around 50,000 and 60,000 while the government, through different agencies, allocates a subsidy that amounted to 62 billion roubles last year.
Through various methods the authorities control the media. It is not done simply by dismissing the head of RTR, the all Russian state broadcasting company, Mr Oleg Poptsov - as Mr Yeltsin did for over critical coverage of the war in Chechnya - or by employing the head of an independent station as part of Mr Yeltsin's election team. More important is the everyday pressure on journalists.
The Russian Journalist Union points to the use of economic weapons against the press, the state monopoly on newsprint production, communications and printing facilities as well as high taxes, which can be used against a highly vulnerable local media.
At the seminar in Perm, Mr Voinov pointed out the loopholes in, the law used against the press. The media law might guarantee access to state organisations, including the courts. But by inserting a clause allowing some journalists to be accredited (in order to receive further information as specialists) what amounted to a licensing system of journalists developed in some places.
Rules allowing for a smooth transition to democracy are being used to keep those involved in the old order in power. "There is now a strong use of the new mechanism, for old uses", said Mr Voinov.