Buying Loyalty

Under Governor Alexei Dyumin, the control system over regional media in the Tula region was fully established. Government contracts for “information coverage” of official activities effectively became a way of buying editorial loyalty. This chapter explains how that system worked — and how journalism gradually shifted from relying on readers to depending on government officials.

Tula, late 2010s

Under Governor Alexei Dyumin, the public relations system of the Tula regional government was finally consolidated and fully staffed. The best professionals were recruited for this task, and significant resources were dedicated to it. By that point, the system was already in place—it just needed discipline.

Alexei Dyumin understood the language of subordination very well. Within the regional government, a strict, barracks-like order took over.

The regional Committee for Press Affairs funded Tula’s newsrooms with government money. It allocated funds for what officials called “information coverage” of the administration’s work. The reasoning was simple, though kept hidden: neither the quality of the writing nor the audience size mattered.

Loyalty was what truly mattered.

Once Anton Ageev told me that the quality of journalistic materials about municipalities and local officials had dropped so much that nobody reads them anymore.

Of course they didn’t read them, dear Anton Valeryevich.

Most of those “materials” were government contract texts. And the problem wasn’t even that they were commissioned — it was how they were produced.

Allow me to clarify with an example.

One day, the Tula city administration asked us to write an article about a summer festival on the city embankment: a fair with archery, medieval armor fittings, gingerbread baking, and tastings of honey and kvass. Mayor Dmitry Milyaev was expected to walk along the rows of stalls, try the gingerbread, chat with residents, and show his involvement with the community.

My reporter did exactly what a journalist is supposed to do. She followed the mayor throughout the entire fair, took photos of the event, and wrote a report.

According to local tradition, commissioned texts were sent to the press service for approval.

In response, we were told that the “correct” version of the article had already been prepared and approved. They would send it to us, and we were expected to publish it word-for-word, without changing a single line.

I objected.

First, the official text was filled with bureaucratic language. Second, if every media outlet published the exact same article, search engines would hide it among duplicate content. Readers would never see it.

“That doesn’t matter to us,” they replied.  
“Our task is simply to ensure that a specific text appears in several media outlets. We’ll copy the links, print them out, and report back to our supervisors.”

Fortunately, I didn’t run a print newspaper but managed an online publication — and I relied on my own stubbornness.

I published the text required by the officials in a way that made it accessible only through a direct link. We sent that link to the clients for their reports.

They felt satisfied.

Meanwhile, we published our own editorial article with the photo report for our readers. Search engines indexed that one instead.

I often did the same thing later.

Some employees of ministerial and parliamentary press offices who wrote these textual masterpieces for us also didn’t have much enthusiasm for them. They even had a professional term for such publications.

They referred to it as “a mass grave.”

A “mass grave” was a lengthy, dull article compiled from carefully approved comments by officials and deputies after a meeting.

No one would ever read it.

Minister Anton Ageev’s complaints about the quality of journalistic articles on city events were justified for only one reason: they weren’t journalism at all.

They did not originate from curiosity about reality. They were not created through observation or questions. Instead, they were assembled like furniture from standardized parts — for reporting purposes, not for readers.

I recommended two straightforward steps to Anton.

First, fund publications through a competitive selection process: have editorial offices propose projects and let the client choose the best one. At least then, the money would start working for quality rather than rewarding habitual bowing.

Second — and this was the simplest thing officials could do immediately — take their feet out of the newsroom and let journalists do their jobs.

If Anton Ageev, Marina Panova, Irina Volkova, or someone from the press offices feared certain phrases, they could just specify the red lines. Say: This cannot be written.

But checking every sentence, rewriting texts according to bureaucratic templates, and turning editorial offices into branches of government press services was no longer cautious.

It was paranoia and direct interference in the media’s work. Anton didn’t listen, and honestly, I don’t think he could have made a decision here. Government contracts with the media weren’t meant to support Tula journalism. They were rewards for loyalty. These funds — especially how they were distributed — did not improve the media environment.

They caused damage to it.

They lowered the quality of content and eroded the basic ethical standards of journalism. Editorial offices began to depend not on readers but on officials.

And very quickly, they learned to anticipate what was expected of them — often before it was even spoken aloud.

Yet every newsroom sought its share of that financial pie.

After all, reporters’ salaries don’t pay for themselves.

Annual contracts with the Tula regional government, the regional legislature, and the city administration offered a stable baseline income — and required minimal editorial effort.

In 2021, the rates were listed as follows:

— For online media, a news item of 2,500 characters costs 5,000 rubles (about $63);
— An article of 5,000 characters costs 10,000 rubles (around $125).

Newspapers can earn up to 90,000 rubles for a single publication (approximately $1,125).

To understand the extent: at that time, the average monthly salary of a staff reporter was about $437, which is roughly 35,000 rubles. However, there was an important nuance.

Within the Tula regional government, officials thought they were not purchasing individual articles.

They believed they were purchasing the entire newsroom’s editorial loyalty.

The budget funds allocated by the Committee for Press Affairs were treated by officials as if they were their own money, not taxpayers’ funds. Therefore, they believed that any newsroom receiving payment for specific publications was required to always work exclusively in their interests. The reasoning was straightforward.

If MK in Tula published one or two articles each month for the Tula Regional Duma — where most seats were held by deputies from the ruling United Russia party — then I was not supposed to criticize the ruling party elsewhere, publish interviews with its political opponents, or write about protest rallies.

Our partners demanded complete loyalty.

My newsroom followed the client’s rules only within the boundaries of a specific commissioned text. Everything else published by MK in Tula was none of their business.

Officials had a different perspective on the situation.

They believed I was taking their money while still talking to people they disliked and writing about things they preferred to ignore.

For this, they labeled me ungrateful and, as Deputy Governor Irina Volkova once said, “incapable of reaching agreements.”

Translated from bureaucratic language, this simply meant something very straightforward. I was breaking the system’s unwritten rule—the rule of one-sided loyalty.

In their view, money does not buy a text; it buys behavior.

Anton Ageev and his ministry were part of that censorship system. His role was to gather information about issues residents faced—issues that emerged and could harm the carefully crafted image of prosperity in the Tula region under Governor Alexei Gennadyevich Dyumin.

Anton found the smallest everyday conflicts to be the most dangerous situations. These conflicts were the ones most likely to escalate into scandals: complaints about unsafe housing, broken heating systems, abandoned neighborhoods, and delayed resettlement programs.

Stories like that could reach the governor—and thus call the minister’s effectiveness into question.

Anton traveled to these locations, talked with residents, promised to fix the problems, calmed conflicts, and convinced people not to file complaints or speak with journalists.

Most of the time, he managed to do his job. But not always. First, because there were too many problems. Second, because people didn’t always trust the officials. And third, because Anton had a traitor—a snake he had warmed on his own chest. 

That traitor was me. 

Sometimes, residents of the region and civic activists would come directly to me — either as a journalist or as the chair of the Public Council.

They showed up because they were tired of waiting for help from officials. They needed publicity. Not to cause scandal for its own sake, but to draw attention to a problem — without which nothing in the region ever moves forward.

In bureaucratic language, this was referred to as “making noise” or “rocking the boat.”

Every appeal that reached the Council or the newsroom I examined carefully. I sent official inquiries to government offices, traveled to the locations myself, and raised some issues at Public Council meetings. 

I wrote about all of it on MK in Tula’s website.

It was on this ground that the disagreements between Anton and me started — disagreements we never managed to resolve.

He was furious.

He had invited a quiet, convenient lecturer from the pedagogical university to the Public Council.

Instead, he got someone who was willing to bring into the open the very things the system had been designed to hide.