Russia's media negotiate hurdles to keep freedom

MOSCOW -- Russia's independent media face huge hurdles in maintaining their freedom, Russian and U.S. participants said at a two-day conference examining the tense relationship between the country's press and government.

"We must fight for what we've been fighting for the last 15 years," said Boris Nemtsov, a leader of the Union of Right Forces, a liberal Russian political party that helped organize the conference, which concluded Saturday.

Nemtsov outlined a dismal portrait of media freedom 10 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, telling his audience that the situation was "acute" in the regional press -- where the majority of publications are controlled by politicians at the local, regional or federal levels.

The conference was held amid the latest battle for Russia's independent media around the country's leading independent radio station. The media arm of gas giant Gazprom -- in which the government has a majority stake -- appears set to try to force changes in the editorial board at Echo of Moscow.

Alexei Venediktov, chief editor of the station, told listeners in a live broadcast Saturday night that he would seek to form a new station.