His name is Alexey Gromov and his story is told here by The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), a reliable independent news source. Gromov is not a criminal in this profile. He is the custodian of an elaborate system of media control..
Gromov, co-creator of RT, the international media network formerly known as Russia Today, exercises his influence in weekly meetings that are mandatory for executive of the country’s television networks.
Gromov’s sessions bring together the heads of all Russia’s major public and private TV companies — Channel One, VGTRK, NTV, TVC, REN TV, and Channel Five — plus representatives of key government agencies, including the office of the president, the government, and the parliament. A Kremlin official responsible for election campaigns also participates, along with foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova. A few regular attendees of these meetings told The Project how they work.
Gromov outlines the president’s schedule and gives direct orders about how to cover his appearances and what exactly should be shown or said in news reports.
“You can ignore this,” one participant recalls Gromov saying as a way of indicating that a particular event should not be covered.
The TV networks also report their plans. They can offer ideas for news coverage, but only Gromov can give the go-ahead.
His instructions may also invoke restrictions on coverage in so-called “control regions.” If an important event is taking place — the election of a governor or the construction of a World Cup stadium, for example — the stations are forbidden to air negative information about anything happening in the entire region.
These restrictions apply to state security agencies as well. The Attorney General’s Office, the Ministry of the Interior, the Investigative Committee, and other state bodies also generate large flows of information through their press services. Representatives of these services also attend a special regular meeting with Gromov, who dispenses instructions on what not to cover.
His role also includes convening important players together in particularly sensitive moments and coordinating their response, as he did when Western countries began to impose sanctions on RT, the state news channel widely dismissed as Russian propaganda.
Source: The Man Behind the Kremlin’s Control of the Russian Media – OCCRP
