#24 - JRL 2009-232 - JRL Home
Russian media outlets launch new multimedia project
RIA-Novosti
Moscow, 18 December: The Russian news agency RIA Novosti, Ekho Moskvy radio station and the Izvestiya daily are launching a new multimedia project on historical research, Beware History.
"We are living in an era of multimedia, in an era when images, especially for the young generation of readers, listeners and internet users, often mean more than content. In this project we have tried to unite images and contents and unite them in a good proportion," RIA Novosti editor-in-chief Svetlana Mironyuk said at the project's presentation today.
The project is dedicated to the most controversial events of the past. (passage omitted)
Mironyuk noted that one of the aims of the project is to revive interest in history.
Ekho Mosvky editor-in-chief Aleksey Venediktov, for his part, said that the main feature of the project is its multimedia character.
"Probably this is the first multimedia project in Russia which will combine radio, a news agency, a national newspaper and of course internet," he said.
Venediktov said RIA Novosti was planning to organize televised links with Ukrainian, Georgian and Baltic historians, politicians and journalists. The presence of a national paper in the project significantly broadens its regional audience.
"We hope for many letters from readers so the interactivity of the project will be quite high," Venediktov said.
He said he personally finds it objectionable when any government meddles in history, for instance by banning discussions on a particular subject.
"I believe this is totally wrong when the authorities introduce unanimity on a historical subject. I regard the project as an attempt at public control and public fight against historical unanimity, including in our country,"
he said.
RIA Novosti, Ekho Moskvy and Izvestiya will be managing the project throughout 2010.
There will be a calendar with hot spots - opposite interpretations, stereotypes and sometimes falsifications. Each of the calendar's week will be dedicated to a controversial historical subject which will be discussed during the week.
RIA Novosti will be holding round table discussions and video links with foreign experts. Ekho Moskvy will be summing up the results of discussions in its Sunday programme "Dym Otechestva". Izvestiya will be publishing various documents and readers' discussions on historical issues.
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