In an open letter published this week in British media, dissidents complained about the allegedly pro-Kremlin tone of the BBC programs and bias towards Russian President Vladimir Putin, a former agent of the feared Soviet-era secret service, the KGB.

The activists, led by Oleg Gordievsky, a former KGB spy turned British MI6 agent, and Vladimir Bukovsky, an author who spent 12 years in Soviet prison camps, are particularly angered by the unexpected axing of a program presented by Seva Novgorodsev that had run for 19 years.

His program regularly featured guests who were enemies of the Moscow government, such as Litvinenko and the journalist Anna Politkovskaya whose murder he was investigating. The BBC reportedly received a protest letter signed by 1,000 listeners around the world.

STRONG VOICE

"At a time when Britain needs a strong voice in Russia more than at any point over the past decade, the taxpayer-funded BBC Russian Service radio seems to have considerably mellowed in its tone towards the Russian government," The Daily Telegraph newspaper quoted the letter as saying. "By design or by neglect, it has become more accommodating of Russian government views, dispensing with difficult questions and denying a platform to some critics."

In addition, the BBC Russian service went off air in Moscow and St Petersburg, two major radio markets, in December around the time of the murder in London of Alexander Litvinenko, a former officer in the KGB. "Unexplained technical difficulties" with the BBC's local partners were reportedly blamed.

A BosNewsLife investigation meanwhile revealed that at least one senior Russian editor had links with the former Soviet Union regime and the KGB. 

Andrei Ostalski, the editor-in-chief of the BBC Russian Service in London, admitted in an article on the network’s Russian website that he had worked for a decade for the Soviet-era news agency TASS, seen as a mouthpiece of the Kremlin and the Communist Party, during the height of the Cold War.

SOVIET INVASION

On the eve of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, an event he called "the entry of Soviet forces," Ostalski said he was asked, and agreed, to closely cooperate with the chief of the analytical department of the KGB, a man identified as Nikolai Leonov.

He said that "on Christmas night" of December 24, 1979, they were asked to "attentively monitor the international reactions to the entry of Soviet forces in Afghanistan." Ostalski, moved to the United Kingdom soon after the break up of the Soviet Union, in the early 1990s.

BosNewsLife also established that several other editors and producers received prestigious Communist-era education in Moscow, which was closed for dissidents, their children, or those who were not loyal to the regime.      

While the BBC leadership has apparently tried to supervise the Russian staff, there have been serious problems with the implementation of that policy. "Our chief of the Russian service, Sarah Gibson, has a limited knowledge of the Russian language. She doesn't even speak good Russian," a source told BosNewsLife on condition of anonymity.

BALANCED SERVICE?

Gibson made clear however that she is competent to do her job and that she tries to ensure a more balanced and professional Russian service, BosNewsLife learned. "Yet we lost the best journalists, we are missing their independent and critical reporting," the source said. "Most items are now produced from the studio or with the current Russian staff."

Under Gibson, tariffs for radio reports produced by often critical, independent, freelance correspondents and stringers decreased recently by up to 30 percent, from the original $130 to about $90.  For often struggling journalists, that amount is barely enough to work on  the required radio packages of up to four minutes in expensive capitals such as Moscow, where they have to cover their own travel and equipment expenses, correspondents said.

The BBC has strongly denied it is silencing critical voices. "The service remains an important and strong source of impartial and independent news and current affairs renowned for asking difficult questions on behalf of its listeners. We reject any suggestion that we have made compromises in our questioning of any point of view in any debate." (The article is part of a BosNewsLife initiative covering freedom of expression issues in and related to former and current Communist nations as well as other countries under autocratic rule). 

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Comments

expert	Thursday, 04 January 2007 (22:43)
Paranoia concerning Russia is in full swing.

quiet man from russia	Saturday, 06 January 2007 (08:45)
Andrey Ostalski had links with KGB. So did president Bush senior, and the junior, too. Ms.Gibson's parsimony, it seems, is the real source of the so-called dissidents' ire.

Sideways glance	Monday, 08 January 2007 (13:06)
Not quite sure about paranoia... Historical events, like Litvinenko's death, tend to bring things like that out in the open.

Drumbeat	Tuesday, 09 January 2007 (09:29)
I think BosLife reporters weren't too bothered freelancing for the same Soviet-bred editors of the Russian Service before. Yes, Russian Service has them aplenty. Are they KGB spies infiltrating? Who knows - accusation of such kind is a serious libel unless supported by something more than the naive conclusions of the above piece. To me its more about total failuire of BBC management to navigate by no means difficult waters of Russian media politics. Which means - failure to manage and a sure sign of incompetence.

Not KGB	Thursday, 25 January 2007 (13:29)
Astonishing article. Especially astonishing as the person writing it has recently stopped working for the BBC Russian Service. Outrageous, slanderous and unprofessional bias by BosNews. I'm speechless that a so called 'news-agency' would stoop so low as to make a personal attack merely because they no longer earn a crust from the BBC. Hang your head in shame. You are not a journalist.

BosNewsLife News Center	Thursday, 25 January 2007 (14:18)
Agnes R. Bos did not write this story and as far as we know is still working for the BBC Russian Service, unless she is punished for this article. The story does raise concerns expressed by dissidents. Apparently you do not dispute the facts mentioned in the piece. In its journalistic tradition, the BosNewsLife News Agency let its readers decide. BosNewsLife News Team

Lady T	Saturday, 03 March 2007 (17:21)
Totally true. BBC Russian Service has asked Zakaev to comment only once during the whole Litvinenko business and I hear that interview was taken off the air, with KGB's Ostalsky initiating disciplinary proceedings against the poor producer who dared to let an enemy of the Kremlin on air!

Rampage	Tuesday, 13 March 2007 (15:04)
From someone who's actually spent a serious amount of time in the USSR as a student, I can tell you this is NOT paranoia on the part of dissidents...unless of course their murders have constituted "paranoia." We were not residents, and we were under constant surveillance as "US spies!" And since when has a "whistleblower" been accused of libel? Oh, yeah, when they are blowing the whistle from the position of a possible member of the "vast right-wing conspiracy." Please. I'm so tired of that schtick...when am going to hear about the TRUE vast conspiracies? Socialist, Communist, and Islamofascist? (Before I get flack for that, I've got the photos of a woman marching in her niqab holding a sign with "God Bless Hitler" on it, and the video of the Palestinian "SS" forces. I have my prove :) -Agnostic Economic Conservative/Social Liberal (surprise!)

News geek	Wednesday, 22 August 2007 (12:38)
Fascinating. Actually, I regard BBC Russian Service as the best Russian language source, bar none. Litvinenko affair coverage was excellent. Quite unbiased unlike most. They even managed to interview him before his death. The poor chap gave them his last inteview. As for Messr Gordievsky and Bukovsky - an interesting bunch they are - one is ex-KGB general, the other an ex-Soviet political prisoner living in England and trying to register as a presidential candidate in Russia. And on top of that they are apparently friends. You never know..

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