Kill Your Television
It's old news, almost, but independent television stations in Russia are having a tough go. Just more than a week ago, the Kremlin shut down the last remaining indie TV channel. "TV-6 was brought down by a lawsuit filed by one of its minority shareholders, the state-connected Lukoil petroleum giant, which acted under an obscure bankruptcy rule, since repealed by the Duma (parliament)," says the Independent's Fred Weir. "Last week a Moscow court ordered TV-6 liquidated, even though the network had shown a solid profit and had more than doubled its ratings in the past year." General sentiment is that it was really TV-6's coverage of the military actions in Chechnya and Russian corruption that led to the shutdown.

Thanks to Utne Web Watch.