Two factors loom largest. During the Soviet decades newspapers were subsidized state propaganda instruments into which money was pumped. Commercial functions integral to most newspapers in capitalist societies, such as advertising sales or sophisticated budgeting mechanisms, either did not exist or existed only in embryonic form. Secondly, most publishers in the CIS are former journalists with little or no experience of commerce and have few of the skills needed to run newspapers as successful businesses in a market economy. Print media in much of the CIS is at a low ebb.
Readerships are low, public trust in newspapers is low.
Thus I make no apology for the fact that the material which follows paints the management of the print media in the CIS in an unfavourable light.