Exhibition “Mass Media in Belarus”: Sheer propaganda and not a single independent newspaper (Photo)

The 13th international specialized exhibition “Mass Media in Belarus” opened in Minsk on May 5.

The event was no different from all the previous ones, Deutsche Welle informs. As said by the organizers, this year it is dedicated to the 65th anniversary of Belarus’ liberation from the Nazi invaders.

Among the persons who opened the exhibition where information minister Uladzimir Rusakevich, culture minister Leanid Hulyaka, the editor-in-chief of the newspaper of the presidential administration “Sovetskaya Belorussiya” Pavel Yakubovich, as well as some high-ranking officials and heads of pro-regime mass media.

It should be noted that none of the independent Belarusian socio-political newspapers is taking part in the exhibition “Mass Media in Belarus-2009”.

The exhibition “Mass Media in Belarus-2009” is positioning itself as an international exhibition; however, only mounts of participants from Russian regions and Israel were noticed on the opening day.

The exhibition is illustrative. It shows the attitude of the authorities to the freedom of expression and freedom of the press. And it makes possible for Western and Belarusian experts to state that the characteristic features of the Belarusian media market are monopoly of the state in electronic mass media, absence of competition and lack of resources which offer alternative information.

1314 newspapers, bulletins, catalogues and informational agencies are officially registered in Belarus. Almost all media products are created in Belarus.

Russian newspapers and agencies which publish their versions adapted to the region could be counted on fingers. No Ukrainian, Polish or Lithuanian newspapers are available for the wide public. And Western mass media are not distributed, they are even seized from tourists at the border.

According to the analyst Alyaksandr Klaskouski, the anomaly of the Belarusian situation in the media sphere is in colossal dominance of the state.

International ratings record that the situation in the sphere of freedom of the press in Belarus is even worse than in some African countries. Annual research of the human rights organisation “Freedom House” states: Belarus occupies the 188th position out of 195 possible in its attitude to freedom of expression and freedom of the press. The head of the organisation Christopher Walker noted that suppression of the freedom of expression and unfriendly environment for the work of mass media are observed in Belarus.

Meanwhile, the official Belarusian statistics state that only a small part of printed sources are under the state control. But analysts have noticed long ago that these figures are rather tricky.

Alyaksandr Klaskouski explains that in reality most sources registered as independent ones are publications of crossword puzzles, recommendations to gardeners and vegetable growers and so on. As for the social and political independent press, it has been almost rooted out as the analyst said.

Belarusians suffer from a deficit of information which hasn’t been filtered by the state, experts underline. Recent emblematic return of to independent newspapers to kiosks does not solve the problem of informational choice: print run of all newspapers which are in this or that way opposing the official point of view are hundreds times as little as the daily print run of just one newspaper of the country, “Sovetskaya Belorussiya”.

Ales Antsipenka, a researcher of Belarusian media and initiator of regular monitoring of state-run newspapers, is convinced that they are a caricature of mass media. Antsipenka stated that ye attitude to problems, aggressive and intolerant, is presented in them all the time.

Belarusian TV is also noted for its categorical stance to the world. A well-known TV journalist Leanid Mindlin observes that instead of news on TV, Belarusians have propaganda. “Television has been given a task to create a trouble-free image of the country, and not to tell what is going on in the country in reality. As a result, non-stop Christmas fairy-tale continues on the screen”, the expert concludes.

According to the patriarch of Belarusian TV journalism, the two nation-wide TV channels which are under the total control of the state and smaller television studios are working as network operators: more and more often they broadcast informational products of others. It’s mostly censored Russian product, but the regime promises that a Chinese TV channel is to appear in Belarus soon.

Though Belarus does not have a high-quality TV production, the authorities block access to foreign TV. Leanid Mindlin reminds that not long ago several Russian TV channels were removed from the network of cable TV operators.

However, according to the journalist Iryna Khalip, Belarusians have a way to find a window to the world. They are in numerous online mass media.

“People who create them work for the sake of the idea, not for money. They have learn to survive in the conditions of the informational war and the war unleashed by the state against freedom of expression,” Khalip writes.

Photo by "Nasha Niva"