Workaday life of the exemplary Baltic democracy or how do Lithuanian media make its living
Popular Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten has published yet another share of revelations of American diplomats, which were publicized by Julian Assange. This time the topic is the secret dispatch that U.S. Ambassador to Lithuania sent to the U.S. State Department, reporting about total corruption that Lithuanian media suffers from. According to the ambassador, corrupted press media has an entire world of Lithuanian politics and business by the throat.
Document that WikiLeaks published was called “Lithuania’s corrupt media hurts everyone, including U.S. businesses”. It is classified “until 2017” in strict accordance with the rules of American secret records management.
This publication might have gone unnoticed in Lithuania, if not for Lithuanian newspaper “15 minutes” — which belongs to the same Norwegian media group as Aftenposten — that reprinted it. Lithuanian Journalist Union Chair Dainius Radzevičius believes that these articles have only publicized what politicians and businessmen have previously discussed in quiet tones; he also believes that now this information should be of interest to the public prosecutor’s office. Yet, for now no one in Lithuania got interested by these sensations. It’s quite understandable that the press media keeps silence — it is the topic of the dispatch of American Ambassador after all. It is curious, however, that neither Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaitė, nor Seim chair Irena Degutienė have reacted yet. The only response came from the Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius, who touched the subject in passing, while interviewed on the radio — he said that the issues of corruption in the media space “can’t be forgotten”. Prime Minister aide Virginius Valentinavičius has given a more detailed comment to that story — he specified that he has repeatedly raised the issue of corruption even before the WikiLeaks publications, but the broad public discussion “hadn’t started” for some reason. According to him, initiative should come from the Lithuanian media itself and the self-regulated journalist organizations.
Liudas Dapkus, 15 Minutes editor-in-chief, who reprinted the U.S. Embassy dispatch right after Aftenposten, believes that the law-enforcement bodies have to investigate into the matter. Press-secretary of Lithuanian General Prosecutor’s Office Rita Stundienne, however, states that according the Lithuanian legislation, they can only start the investigation after receiving the statement of a crime and although she’s aware of the 15 Minutes material, no measures will be undertaken before such statement is made.
So what did the U.S. Ambassador write in his prematurely declassified diplomatic dispatch. Here’s an excerpt from that document: “Media-control institutions are impotent in Lithuania, while politicians are displeased with the need to pay the corrupted journalists too much for the articles they need”.
This information, as the dispatch author specified, derives from the conversations with representatives of political parties and authorities, in particular with the Chancellery of the Prime Minister. Speaking with diplomat, undisclosed representative of the Labor Party told that one has to pay 25.000 litas (more than $60.000) for the publication in the major Lithuanian newspaper Lietuvos Rytas. Politician, however, was indignant not with the sad fact of corruption itself, but rather with market inequity: Social-Democratic Party paid merely 5.000 litas (more than $12.000) for the similar article. Dispatch pays the utmost attention to the Lithuanian Respublika newspaper, who is “engaged into an outright extortion”, according to the Americans. Later they describe the episode with director of Lithuanian branch office of American company Pfizer Raimundas Vojska — he was made “an offer he couldn’t refuse” in the best traditions of Mario Puzo. Respublika editors offered him to destroy every pharmaceutical competitor of Pfizer for a modest fee of 1 million litas (approximately $2.5 million). When Vojska turned they offer down in indignation, the newspaper published a number of materials about lethal consequences of Viagra use (it is produced by Pfizer), Vojska himself and the Pfizer Company in general.
When Mercedes-Benz refused to print their ads in the newspaper, Respublika published a number of articles claiming that German cars don’t meet the security requirements.
Dispatch also cites Vilius Kawaliauskas, an aide of the former Lithuanian Prime Minister Gediminas Kirkilas, who said that “one has to buy himself a right not to be defamed in the Lithuanian press media”.
Liudas Dapkus, 15 Minutes editor-in-chief claims that he’s unafraid of attacks upon his newspaper from the media corruptionists. “Firstly, the primary source is our own mother-newspaper Aftenposten. Secondly, we have the paper and typographic equipment of our own, so it won’t be easy to deal with us” — he said. It turns out that excessive cautiousness won’t do any harm, when you fight against Respublika. An entire Lithuania still remembers how this newspaper tried to destroy its Internet-competitor — DELFI portal. When the blackmailing attempts failed, Respublika created a clone web-site, DELFINAS, copying the design and color gamma of the competitor and started to publish deliberate misinformation there in order to alienate and anger the readers. Trial that the aggrieved party initiated took quite a time, but finally the clone was switched out, according to the court verdict.
As the WikiLeaks publication indicates, U.S. Embassy believes the dependence of Lithuanian media upon the local capital and concentration of authority in the hands of a bunch of oligarchs to be the key problem. Lithuanian media are used as a tool to fight the competitors and inconvenient politicians. Quite often “pocket” media promote “suitable” politicians via aggressive PR-campaigns, depicting them as the noble statesmen. A popular story wanders across Lithuanian — according to it, right after joining the EU European investors came to an owner of the third-class radio station and offered him to sell them his shares. He responded with a price offer, which was several times larger than the average price on the market. That’s how radio owner explained the perplexed Europeans the overrated price: “I’m selling political influence, rather than radio”.
The funniest thing here is that Europe is shocked, while Lithuanian itself has treated it quite calmly. Lithuanian editors-in-chief do not particularly comprehend, what are they accused of — that’s a commonplace scheme of work for them. It seems that despite the EU membership, Euro-Union standards for freedom of speech (not quite spotless either) still remain out of reach for Lithuania. The prices are quite impressive, too. Where did little Lithuania get this money from? Even measuring with a Russian ruler, their editorial houses are way too expensive. Thus, if you’d like to write a letter to Respublika or Lietuvas Rytas, you may easily begin your letter with the good old Soviet “Dear editors!” Have some spare arms and legs, though — dear editors will cost you dearly.
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