Raf Shakirov, editor-in-chief of “Izvestia”, has been dismissed.
The cause of the dismissal was the issue devoted to teract in Beslan. Huge photos of wounded and killed children were carried on the front and last pages. Shakirov claimed, “We disagreed with governing body of “Prof-Media” (owner of “Izvestia”)”.
Shakirov started working in “Izvestia” about a year ago. He was put a task to stop decrease of audience of “Izvestia”. According to TNS Gallup Media, in April 2003 audience of an issue of the newspaper was 380 000 in Russia and 68 400 in Moscow. The numbers had increased to 443 000 in Russia and 102 600 in Moscow by July 2004. The new editor-in-chief tried to orient the newspaper to younger audience. He managed to achieve this partially: for a year a share of the audience of 16-34 years old increased from 19.3% to 25.9% in Moscow. Ruslan Tagiev, director general of TNS Gallup AdFact, said, “The dismissal is hardly connected with positions of the newspaper at the market”.
Konstantin Simonov, Director general of the Center for Current Politics in Russia, is sure that Shakirov was dismissed because of excessive caution of the owners of “Izvestia”. “Oligarchs are frightened after the case of YUKOS and follow demands of the authorities. So, there is no need of telephone calls”.

Published in “Firm’s secret”, 13.09.2004