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#11 - JRL 8076
From: "Robert Bruce Ware" <rware@siue.edu>
Subject: Gessen JRL 8073
Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004

The Russian media have not framed the discussion of Chechnya for the American media, contrary to Ms. Gessen’s claim in JRL 8073. Coverage of the current war in Chechnya has been appropriately framed by Russian and Western (see below) media in terms of three principal themes: (1) military issues of battles, tactics, logistics, terrorism, and finances; (2) political issues of sovereignty and administration; (3) normative issues of suffering, relief, and rights. Two key subsidiary themes have been (a) nationalism, and (b) Islamism.

The Russian media have consistently focused upon military issues. For the most part they have reported on political issues and normative issues from a Russian perspective, in terms of Russian sovereignty and the suffering of Russian citizens, especially those in southern Russia. However, during the past two years the Russian media have given greater attention to normative and political issues as they affect people in Chechnya. The Russian media also have consistently discussed subsidiary issues of nationalism and Islamism.

By contrast, the Western media provided detailed coverage of military issues through the battle of Grozny (December 1999 to February 2000). Coverage of terrorism has remained steady, but since the end of the battle of Grozny, other military coverage has declined in the West (with the exception of AFP, which has consistently covered battles). The Western media have generally covered normative and political issues from a Chechen perspective, in terms of Chechen sovereignty and separatism, Chechen suffering, and administrative shortcomings in Chechnya. Prior to September 2001, the Western media were interested in nationalist issues in Chechnya. After September 2001, the Western media became increasingly concerned with Islamist influences in Chechnya.

These have been the clear and distinct differences in the media coverage of Chechnya in Russia and in the West. It is false to suggest that the Russian media have framed the US media’s presentation of the war.

Ms. Gessen asserted: "Certainly after 9/11 most US newspapers have not cast doubt on the Russian claim that it is fighting an "anti-terrorist campaign" in Chechnya. In fact, some have gone to great lengths to bolster the Russian claim that there is Al Quaida involvement in Chechnya--a claim for which there is little, if any, evidence." Clearly, then, Ms. Gessen, it was not the Russian media, but Osama Bin Laden (and, to a lesser degree, a series of subsequent assessments by the US State Department) that provoked this shift and framed this discussion for the US newspapers. Moreover, there was ample evidence of Al Qaida’s involvement in Chechnya before 9/11, as anyone who studies Chechnya knows. There is no longer any serious debate of this point among Chechnya scholars, who do, however, disagree on the centrality of Islamism to the Chechen conflict, and to certain Chechen leaders, such as Aslan Maskhadov. Indeed, the irony is that greater attention by the US newspapers to the roles of Islamism and terrorism in Chechnya could conceiveably have helped to prevent the 9/11 tragedy (see "Will Southern Russian Studies Go the Way of Sovietology", http://groups.yahoo.com/group/RMSMC/message/3175)

By "Western" I mean what is meant by everyone else who uses the term, namely the liberal democratic societies of Western Europe, North America, Australia, and New Zealand. For nearly five years, I have monitored media coverage of Chechnya in Western countries including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, and to a lesser degree Denmark, Germany, and Spain. I have carried on extensive correspondence with several journalists who have covered Chechnya for publications in these countries, and have questioned them with regard to their motives and influences. The latter have much more to do with a rejection of Russian media coverage than with an acceptance of it.

Since the beginning of 2000, I also have benefited from a series of websites that are operated by Ralph Davis and are devoted to international media coverage of the North Caucasus. The most accessible of these (though unfortunately not the one most focused on Chechnya) may be "Russian Military-Security Media Coverage". Free subscriptions to this newsletter may be obtained at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/RMSMC . The best of the scholarly literature on this topic may be "Through a Distorted Lens: Chechnya and the Western Media," which Anatol Lieven published in Current History (October 2000), and which appeared in JRL at about that time.

I have also published critical essays on the topic of Western media coverage of Chechnya, in which I have argued essentially that there is insufficient overlap of Russian and Western perspectives to provide for a balanced picture. In this regard, I have written to JRL on numerous occasions to criticize Western media coverage of the Chechen conflict. I never imagined that I would be writing to defend it. It must be leap year.