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Medvedev to give regular interviews to Russian media - press secretary
RIA-Novosti
April 14, 2009

On Sunday 19 April the Russian NTV channel will broadcast an interview with Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev, Nataliya Timakova, press secretary to the head of state, has told journalists, according to RIA Novosti.

The president will be interviewed by the chief editor of the NTV News Broadcasting Directorate, Tatyana Mitkova.

"The interview will be about housing construction," Tmakova said.

"In conversation with the president" (Russian: "Beseda s presidentquot;) is a new format of communication between the head of state and citizens.

Before the president gave interviews to federal TV channels but he did not take part in TV programmes.

The new format was the initiative of the president, and the head of state's meetings with presenters of Russian main TV channels are now becoming regular. On 15 February the president gave an interview to the Rossiya TV channel and on 15 March to Channel One TV, RIA Novosti report said.

The president also intends to start giving regular interviews to Russian newspapers, Timakova said, as reported by ITAR-TASS.

She confirmed that on Wednesday 15 April the first such interview would be published in Novaya Gazeta (twice-weekly newspaper, often critical of the government).

The president will be talking about issues such as developing civil society, fighting corruption and improving the legal system, Timakova said.

"This is the first such interview but not the last. The president has decided to give full-flooded interviews to Russian newspapers on a regular basis," the press secretary said.

According to her, Novaya Gazeta was chosen, firstly, because Dmitriy Medvedev gave a promise to this effect at a meeting with the newspaper's editor-in-chief Pavel Muratov and one of Novaya Gazeta shareholders, former USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev, in the wake of the murders of defence lawyer Stanislav Markelov and Novaya Gazeta journalist Anastasiya Baburova and, secondly, because many Novaya Gazeta journalists have been murdered in the past few years.