Ildar Gilmutdinov: ‘National media cannot develop without support’
Problems and prospects of the Russian national media have been discussed in Kazan
Journalists from 33 regions of Russia gathered at the Bashir Rameev Kazan IT Park for the tenth anniversary All-Russian Forum of National Media on 29 August. At the plenary session of the event, they discussed the role that correspondents' knowledge of modern technologies plays in maintaining peace between different peoples, how to adapt migrants to Russian society and what changes await the country's state national policy. Read the details in the material of Realnoe Vremya.
“Could you make a legislative initiative so that those entering Russia know Russian”
As Chairman of the State Council of Tatarstan Farid Mukhametshin said at the plenary session of the forum, the republic is considered an example of friendship of peoples. Its ethnic diversity is also evident in the media field. According to the data announced by Mukhametshin, 679 media outlets are registered in the republic. There are 342 printed publications: 172 newspapers and 111 magazines in Russian, 114 newspapers and 40 magazines in Tatar, 5 newspapers in Chuvash, 2 in Udmurt. The region broadcasts 59 TV channels (57 of them are in Russian, 37 — in Tatar) and 64 radio programs (52 — in Russian, 34 — in Tatar). There are 208 online publications.
But not everything is so smooth in Tatarstan, the chairman of the State Council of the republic admitted. The process of adaptation of migrants is built imperfectly, without which Tatarstan, with its multi-vector policy, cannot do. According to the data announced by Mukhametshin, 79,000 citizens of other countries live in the republic today. Twenty-two thousand guests plan to study at Russian universities. The trouble is that many of them do not know Russian.
“The Kazan professorship, with whom I meet regularly, complains, says: 'Farid Khairullovich, call the Duma, make a legislative initiative so that those entering Russia know Russian, because we teach disciplines in Russian, but they have poor knowledge of the language," the speaker shared.
As a result, the chairman of the State Council appealed to Speaker of the State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin.
“They made such a decision: a month-long training course. Those who come to study with us should know at least the basics of the Russian language. And those who go to work quickly adapt to work collectives," Mukhametshin concluded.
Specific changes will be made to the state national policy of Russia
Work is currently underway to update the strategy of the state national policy of Russia, First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Ethnic Affairs Ildar Gilmutdinov said. Targeted changes related to the strengthening of spiritual and moral education and the integration of new regions will be adopted.
A representative of one of the constituent republics, director general of the LNR STRBC Elena Prasolova, also spoke at the meeting. She expressed gratitude to the rais of Tatarstan, Rustam Minnikhanov, and colleagues for the establishment of a representative office of the Tatarstan TV channel in her homeland:
“The leadership of Tatarstan supported the unique idea of Ilshat Aminov to create a representative office in new territories. And now Alina Suleymanova and her team are reporting on the Lugansk 24 channel. They are known by sight. I bow low for the implementation of this project.”
Journalist vs artificial intelligence
National media needs subsidies from the federal and regional budgets, Ildar Gilmutdinov is sure.
“In autumn, at the site of the State Duma Committee on Nationalities, we are going to discuss what measures from the government and regional authorities are needed to support our national media. They cannot develop further without support. Especially those media outlets that are aimed at children and youth," he stressed.
An important task facing the media today, especially in the national republics, is to resist attempts to incite interethnic and interfaith discord. This is the opinion of Vladimir Tabak, the director general of Dialog ANO and Dialog Regions ANO.
According to him, Russians are faced with millions of copies of fake data every year. In these conditions, the media are one of the key filters for the reliability of information. Recently, deepfake videos of governors have been used for the first time in the Kursk region, the speaker gave an example. So journalists need to have an understanding of the technological process and distinguish between conflicts provoked from the outside.
The director of the Grozny ChGTRK (Chechen State television and radio broadcasting company), Chingiz Akhmadov, shared his experience of using artificial intelligence (AI) in journalism. A chatbot has been developed for the employees of the TV channel, which can generate an image, transcribe text, monitor news and even compose a voiceover text or an article for publication.
The main thing is that national media have something to develop and master new technologies for. The younger generation today has an interest in their roots, chairman of the Coordinating Council at the House of Peoples of Russia Andrey Khudoleev assured.
“Those who say that young people are not interested are lying, blatantly lying. The question is how to present this topic. Talking to children in an adult way, I learned a lot. The main goal was to offer children something [to create] on a national theme. I haven't heard better design ideas in many years," he said.