The Guardian When Mikhail Gorbachev promised the Soviet people glasnost, there was a sceptical cheer. But Gorbachev learnt the lesson and after Chernobyl openness did indeed take wing. Vladimir Putin emerged in the Kremlin at a different juncture in Russian history. By now the press is incomparably freer than in Soviet times. It is not always accurate.
Polemics often take precedent over balanced reporting, and the media tycoons interfere too much.
The public's appetite for decent reporting is also far higher. So Putin has to operate in a new climate. Sadly, the Kursk submarine disaster has shown his inadequacy. The official version of the disaster has flowed up and down as treacherously as the underwater currents in the Barents sea. First there were different accounts of when the disaster occurred.