Tatyana Mitkova presents NTV television's nightly news program, "Segodnya."

Renowned for her elegance and cool head on television, Mitkova became widely known for her broadcast of the killing of 13 Lithuanian protesters in 1991 by Soviet Interior Ministry special forces in Vilnius.

At the time, government officials forced Mitkova to broadcast the official Soviet version of the events in Lithuania, giving a false account that extremist elements among the protesters were themselves responsible for the deaths in an effort to incite further anti-government protests.

Television was the most censored of all media in the late Gorbachev era. But Mitkova concluded the report of the massacre with the words: "That is all the information we have." The deviation from the norm was a clear signal to the audience that she herself did not believe the account.

That signaled an important break from the previous passivity of broadcast journalists.

Since then, Mitkova has become something of an institution on Russian television. She spoke recently to The Russia Journal's Michael Heath.

RJ: In 1991, you had to broadcast the official version of events in relation to the killings in Lithuania ... What were your feelings then?

TM: It saddened me. First, because we had Gorbachev's Perestroika under way, and then it ran up against this killing in Lithuania. And it also saddened me, and not just me but all my colleagues, because we, the journalists, were being looked upon as pawns that could just be moved around on the chessboard. That was a huge disappointment - it brought an end to our illusions.

RJ: How dramatic is the change between that time and now?

TM: Now it's a different kind of crisis. 1991 was the end of one era and the beginning of another - and the period immediately following it was one of optimism and hope. Now, we are once again coming to the end of an era - the end of the Yeltsin era - but the difference between now and 1991 is that the disappointments, the shattered illusions, that is all behind us. We know now just how difficult it is to bring about any real change, but we are still looking to the future.

RJ: How objective is the Russian media? An example that comes to mind is the initial coverage of the conflict in Yugoslavia.

TM: There's really no such thing as objective media because every person and every paper has its own views on the world. If you can give me a definition of exactly what being objective is, then it would be possible to say whether or not the press is objective. On the whole, the Russian press deals with issues in a similar way to the European press. I won't talk about the American press because I don't know it. Ultimately, everything comes down to political orientation. The left-wing press supported Milosevic and they thought they were being objective. The right-wing press supported NATO action and they also thought they were being objective. All of this served only to widen the divide between different groups in politics and society, but then again, the press does reflect society.

RJ: In your view, is the Russian press more opinionated and speculative than the media in other countries? I qualify that with the point that in politics at least, it seems there is restricted access to information in Russia.

TM: It's essentially linked to the relationship between the press and power. In the West, as far as I know, journalists have ready access to information, that is, to any legally obtainable information. But in Russia, it can be immensely difficult to obtain information from officials, even when those officials are legally obliged to give the information out. And often, the information they do give is incomplete or inaccurate. It is then all really linked to this whole question of relations between politics and the press and also perhaps to the lack of an appropriate legal framework.

RJ: What is the influence of oligarchs in the Russian press and have you ever experienced pressure from above?

TM: I know Vladimir Alexandrovich [Gusinsky], because he is the owner of NTV, but I only ever see him at the anniversary celebrations of the NTV company. He has never given me any orders which, in a way, even surprises me, but he realizes that you can't make good television by giving out orders. As for Berezovsky, you can read all about his influence in the newspapers.

RJ: The battle between Berezovsky and Gusinsky, is it healthy business competition or is it a political struggle?

TM: Well, since I work for NTV, which is the company that is opposing Berezovsky, it wouldn't be right for me to pass judgement, so I can't really answer the question.

RJ: Turning to politics, do you think Russia has completely broken with totalitarianism, or is the return of a dictator possible?

TM: I don't think we will be going back to anything that we've already been through, because we've lived through it; we have seen it. We won't go back to communism, nor to the Perestroika period, nor even to what has been happening in recent years with Yeltsin. What we will see is something entirely new, and we will probably see it come as soon as next year [after presidential elections].

RJ: Looking back over the past eight years, what do you see as the key events, and how would you assess them? Have there been positive events, or has it been a disaster?

TM: I wouldn't call the last eight years a catastrophe because I believe - this is just my personal belief - that whatever happens must happen. It is like a kind of lesson that we go through - we have to learn something from it. And maybe in 1991-92 we weren't yet ready for a different kind of development. Maybe that all sounds a bit mystical. But I don't want to call the Yeltsin years a catastrophe. In any case, our people don't deserve for it to be that way, for them to have to conclude now that they're in the midst of a catastrophe. I think that they can still pull themselves out of this mess.

RJ: Backtracking slightly, what, to you, are the defining events of the Yeltsin era?

TM: Unfortunately, most of the significant events seem to be negative ones. I would have to name Chechnya [1994-96 war], the widespread corruption and the increase in crime. The only positive event over these last years, and perhaps the greatest achievement of the Yeltsin regime, is freedom of the press, this new openness. Over these years that Yeltsin has been in power, there have been no abuses of journalists' rights, and that is a great achievement.

RJ: A question from left field. We have this theory that Russian men pretend to run everything in Russia, but it is the women who actually get things done. Is there any truth to that hypothesis?

TM: Well, I wouldn't agree with the idea that it is men who make all of the decisions. This is true not just for Russia, but for all countries. There is always a woman for the sake of whom a man is doing what he does, for the sake of whom he is making money, trying to become president, or whatever. It is always for a woman, and the woman is helping him to make these important decisions. So when it comes to Russia, women and men are on an equal footing.

RJ: Has the role of Russian women changed since the collapse of the Soviet Union?

TM: Certainly. Now there are women politicians in Russia, whereas in Soviet times, the only woman politician was the culture minister, [Yekaterina] Furtseva. Unfortunately, women politicians in Russia haven't yet climbed as far as in other countries: There's been no Russian Thatcher, Hillary Clinton or [Madeleine] Albright, for example. But we're heading toward that.

RJ: So you think Russian women will scale the heights of politics?

TM: Essentially, it depends on what is happening in society. If society begins to do a bit better, if the economy improves, then women will be freed up from worrying about how to make ends meet, looking after their family and so forth. They will begin to want to broaden their horizons a bit and go out and perhaps get into politics.

However, I wouldn't call myself a feminist, because I don't think that ultimately there should be a lot of women who go into politics. I say this because women in politics sometimes make a strange impression; you get the feeling that they're there because they somehow couldn't do anything successfully in other areas. So they've got all these complexes, which are going to reflect on how they act as politicians.

RJ: How do you think things will go in the elections?

TM: As far as the Duma elections go, I think the left will be the losers there. It is hard to say now what the chances of all these new blocs will be. The interesting elections will be the presidential ones because what is happening at the moment is that last year's leading candidates are losing ground to people who it seems don't even have the time to launch a campaign. People like [Vladimir] Putin and [Sergei] Stepashin, they're the ones gaining ground, while past favorites are losing ground, like [Alexander] Lebed, [Gennady] Zyuganov and, unfortunately, [Grigory] Yavlinsky. So there is a changing situation that will make it all extremely interesting.

RJ: Just to change tack, has there been a change in the Russian people's attitude toward Raisa Gorbachev since her death? And if so, what would you ascribe that to?

TM: The people's reaction to her death was one of surprise - it surprised me too. When we learned she was ill, we immediately sent a [TV] crew to Munster [in Germany]. There is an old adage that to understand what someone was all about - what they did during their lifetime - you need to wait until they have passed away.

The thing is that with Raisa, she was there at the summit of power: even though she wasn't a politician herself; she was Gorbachev's wife. But she is unique because even though Yeltsin's era would seem to have given women the chance to enter politics, there still hasn't been someone like her at the top.

RJ: What's it like working with [Itogi presenter] Yevgeny Kiselyov?

TM: We've been working together since the late '80s. It's great working with him; you can learn a lot.