http://www.yahoo.com/headlines/current/international/stories/yeltsinmedia.html (Einblicke ins Internet, 10/1995)
MOSCOW (Reuter) - President Boris Yeltsin Friday promised Russian journalists, increasingly worried about their safety and their independence, that he would continue to defend press freedom.
Addressing a journalists' forum, Yeltsin acknowledged that the principles of press freedom and access to information laid down in the Russian constitution were often ignored in practice.
Breaking from his prepared text, he promised that his press secretary Sergei Medvedev would unfailingly answer journalists' calls and reply to their questions.
Medvedev listened attentively as Yeltsin jabbed the air with his hand to emphasize his point.
Yeltsin complained that officials who put pressure on journalists or interfered with their work rarely if ever faced prosecution and said he would not sign into law a new criminal code drafted by parliament unless it retained penalties for such acts.
The president reaffirmed his commitment to pluralism in the Russian press and condemned the idea, floated by some senior politicians, that the press should promote a single new state ideology to replace communism.
He said prosecutors were failing to crack down on racist and extremist publications which were spreading ethnic and religious hatred banned by law.
Rising printing and distribution costs have forced several Russian newspapers to close and placed others in severe difficulties. Some have survived only with the help of banks and business groups, leading to fears for their editorial independence.
Yeltsin paid tribute to Russian journalists who have been murdered or killed in armed conflicts.