(00:00:00) And the time is 12 o'clock. Good afternoon. I am Terry sario president of the Northwest area foundation and a member of the Minnesota meeting board of directors. It is my pleasure to welcome you here today on behalf of Minnesota meeting. I would also like to welcome our radio audience throughout the Upper Midwest who are hearing this program on Minnesota public radio's midday program. Broadcasts of Minnesota meeting are made possible by the law firm of Oppenheimer wolf and Donnelly with offices in Minneapolis. St. Paul and major cities in the US and Europe. Minnesota meeting is a public affairs Forum which brings National and international speakers to Minnesota. members of Minnesota meeting represented this communities leaders from corporations government Academia and the professions We are happily celebrating our 10th year in the marketplace of ideas. Minnesota meeting is pleased to present today's special program. We are honored to have with us Edward Hughes Maxwell macron and Sergey D'Artagnan three of the key players in the First Independent Russian American newspaper. We / muy muy in Russian means we It is a joint publication of the Hearst Corporation and the largest Independent newspaper in Russia. Its vet Sia the paper debuted in February over 300,000 issues are distributed in major cities throughout the Commonwealth of independent states an English version is available on newsstands in major US cities our guests today have been gracious enough to provide us with the English and Russian versions of the latest edition. I hope you find them as interesting as I do. Now I'd like to introduce our panel. Mr. Hughes is the vice president and group publisher at Hearst in New York a post. He has held since 1985. Mr. Hughes was very much involved in putting together the needed capital and organizing the business side of we I'm sure that was a daunting task. Maxwell macron is the u.s. Editor of we before joining we mr. McClaren was editor of the Los Angeles herald-examiner editor of Chicago today managing editor of the Chicago Tribune and editor-in-chief and president of UPI. He began his career in the US as a foreign correspondent for the Morning Herald of Sydney, Australia Sergey. D'Artagnan will be the chief of wheeze Russian staff in Washington. He is the Deputy International editor editor of Yvette Sia. And the youngest member of it. He's vet C has editorial board. Mr. Darden is a graduate of the Moscow Institute of Foreign Affairs and I am told and astute Observer of Russian politics. Don Shelby whom I'm sure you all recognize as the anchor of WCCO TV news is our moderator Jane mrazek and Ken darling of Minnesota meeting will be moving among you with microphones during the question and answer session. Please use the slips of paper on your tables to jot down questions. It is now my pleasure to turn the program over to Don Shelby. Thank you very much Terry. It's an honor to be a part of. Today's meeting and I'll begin by telling you that the Venture that we're discussing will be discussed in detail for 15 minutes. And then we're going to open the floor to some discussion. Now, you may take that time to bridge into areas of your own interest. You may ask questions on a larger geopolitical basis than that, which we might have covered in the first 15 minutes or you can narrow the focus. If you wish to the explicit digs, its existence ease of doing business in the Soviet Union and operating as a free press. Speaking of the the Free Press and and how one goes about a commercial Enterprise in the former Soviet Union in the Commonwealth of independent states. And selling advertising in that country and selling American advertising at that to a Soviet public the concept of did did not take long to sink into at least one corporate representative who was contacted to buy some advertising Corning to Maxwell mccrone. The editor of we he said that the Colgate representative thought for a moment when he was told that there were 250 million people in the Soviet Union. The Colgate rep said That's a lot of teeth. That's what we're talking about. We're talking about a commercial newspaper Enterprise joint Enterprise. But to tell you more about that. I would like to start with mr. Hughes who will give you some background on the newspaper and then we will go to Sur gaydar Deacon and then next to Maxwell mccrone. Mr. Hughes. Thank you. (00:06:06) I'm sure that everybody who has addressed the group from six people to 200 in the last year has commented about the fact that my goodness here. I am in the town that had the US Open and the Super Bowl and the North Stars and in the final four and I'm sure it's a real young but for us it really is Meaningful because this is our debut We have never appeared in front of a group at all. We're a very new publication only having printed for issues. So we're very pleased to be here and I think we are in pretty good company the newspaper itself. As you may have noticed is in two different sizes. The Cyrillic language one is larger for two reasons one. There are more letters in the alphabet and to the printing press availability is of this size. So there are indeed two different size newspapers to perhaps preempt a question. I might add that this is indeed a for-profit Enterprise at no time was the altruistic Hands Across The Sea concept driving. This whole idea people have asked us already this morning is this there? Foundation project this is not a Hearst Foundation project. This is a hearse make money project. A little bit about Hurst. If you don't know much about the our company Hearst obviously is a newspaper company. What you may not know is that hers publishes more monthly magazines than any other company in the world starting with Cosmopolitan going to Good Housekeeping to motor boating and sailing to Popular Mechanics and the list goes on and on and on the Hearst Corporation has not done many joint ventures in its history. Although we are doing another one now with the Dow Jones company and some of you may have seen our latest magazine called smart money, which is really a terrific financial assistance kind of publication. We do Blondie and the list goes on and on and on. Izvestia, excuse me was the newspaper of the government of the USSR right Supreme Soviet Supreme Soviet. Okay profit on the other hand was the newspaper of the Communist party and it is now defunct. So izvestia is now an independent newspaper owned in half by the employees and some government involvement that hasn't been straightened out as yet, but it is indeed a free speech Independent (00:09:07) Newspaper. (00:09:10) We means we in Russian and the term we is not a Hurst Ian u.s. Generated term the the name of the newspaper comes from Russia. And it is truly a we doing it together newspaper. Now the newspapers editorial purpose is to help those in the Commonwealth of independent states come into the capitalist real world. Do it on a privatized basis in this country. We hope to help people better understand what's going on over there. And excuse me, what opportunities might exist for US based multinational corporations. We started the newspaper in 300,000 kiosks in basically three cities Kiev st. Petersburg and Moscow that has been expanded to nine cities to date the cover price was 3 rubles, which is a very high price when I believe the average person in Russia's monthly income is about 600 rubles. Is that close enough? So that is a self-sufficiency seeking democracy. Graphic audience that is obviously fairly. Well healed as a sidebar. I've been in the magazine business most of my life and I have never had a circulation story to tell quite like this one because there is now a black market in we over there for 10 rubles of copy. So that's a pretty exciting circulation story in this country. We are sending on a what we call a controlled circulation basis about 40,000 copies to Fortune top 5 500 Executives to Congressman to academic leaders and so on we're out on about 7 to 10 new stands around the country and it's doing fairly. Well we sold well in San Francisco we've done well in Seattle and we are starting to put the paper on newsstands in. The UK and in the common market countries we are. In hopes of selling advertising in the paper, we can take six pages of advertising each in each issue. We started the paper one issue in February 1 in late March, we are to in May June and July 1 we become a weekly, so it's going to be a really major undertaking and we're very happy and pleased with it. From the how do we do it standpoint? It's a real high-techy kind of undertaking in that we have in Washington and editorial staff of 12 Americans headed by Max and three Russian journalist headed by Sergei in Moscow. There are a like number of izvestia editors twelve to Fifteen and three Americans headed by a gentleman by the name of Jerry Schechter. Who was at one time Time magazine's bureau chief in Moscow. Now, what happens is that They have a state-of-the-art Macintosh system in Moscow state-of-the-art Macintosh system in Washington, and we got a bird up there and they talk to each other with the mouse and designed the paper each week Sergei saying Ed. Why don't you move that picture up here and he moves it and I move it and we literally don't so it's a it's a real high-tech Marvel. I don't know where the circulation will go over. There it obviously is going to grow if you think of the Free Press didn't exist a year ago in Moscow and you look at the paper that we've got on the table talking about why what's his name did the coup we had a story a couple of weeks ago about Chernobyl and the lack of safe practices around the atomic reactor plants over there. I mean the papers are going to sell like crazy. I would guess our circulation will grow here. That's about all I have to say done. I'll be happy to ask answer any questions at an appropriate time. Thanks. All (00:13:59) right, let's go to Sur gaydar Deacon. And if you could Sergei talk about the editorial content of the paper in your goals. (00:14:09) Yes, I will try to be short. It's not easy business to start a new publication in our country. Now reason number one and and last that now we have their only one market which fulfilled absolutely with product. It's a news media market. So we have enormous sum of new Publications and anybody can ask why we are so sure in success of our project. Because I can answer this question. It's it's very simple because these newspaper is absolutely you for our Market. It's a nice looking car American like looking newspaper. It's the first full color newspaper printed in Russia. It's the first newspaper in which American and Russian journalists working together and that trying to do their best to mix the best traditions of American and Russian journalism. So we had we have had for his use till now and the circulation we Printed in Moscow for you and hours in Moscow Saint Petersburg and and key so people are interested in this newspaper. Of course, we have some problems. So these problems are not connected with technical side of the project with any censorship. We have some editorial projects. We have two different audiences American audience which used to American kind of Journalism and Russian audience. We have different requests the simplest example Russian reader requires more American stories in this newspaper because because Russian storage available for game in Russian newspapers American readers we have got some coupons printed in our newspaper. So we know the response require acquire more Russian stories more stories about Russia. So we have we have a lot of arguments and now editorial stuff but not arguments between between Americans and Russians what between Moscow and Washington part of our staff our colleagues working in Moscow both Americans and Russians. Like to meet the request of Russian Market my ex and I working here know what American Market requires from us and the like to meet and satisfy those (00:17:40) requests. (00:17:45) What is the best choice for us in completing the editorial the total material of our newspaper? And we are trying to follow this way each time in each story. We are supposed to look after our own angle. To explain things to cover things in the way, which could be equally interesting useful for both Americans and Russian readers. It's not easy each time, but we are trying to do that. We are trying to cover the issues are can be and supposed to be the subject of interest for both audiences. so from my point of view This project is really exciting project. So these newspaper was match very well by professionals both in the United States and in Russia. So it's the very first newspaper which looks good for for Professionals in such to different countries. So it's it's our grand for for our future. Thank you. (00:19:26) Thank you Sergey maximum cron co-editor us side. I asked you before we came to lunch who's first amendment where we going to use and I'd like you to deal with (00:19:38) that issue for this crowd if you (00:19:39) will. No, I'm happy to do that first. Let me say I'm delighted to be here before such a distinguished group the problem with being number three on a three-man pain. Is it everything that's been said by the time you get to number three but two Don's question indeed. It's that's that's the key to the whole to the whole Venture here. Is this really free or is there some sort of self-censorship involved? There is no self censorship that I have detected at that end there certainly isn't any here and indeed if there is any guide post to use as I told Don it's the first amendment. He got a freedom if there were any attempt to censor the paper we would probably close it and I'm very confident that that's not going to happen. There's a Vitality in Russia and the other Republic's right now that's reflected in a great deal of openness and desire to learn about the rest of the world. Especially the United States. There's an insatiable and insatiable interest in things American their people want to know the smallest detail. How you live how you what will your children go to school? What it's like what are they? Taught? What are you reading? What movies do you see by the way, they see movies almost as quickly as we do thanks to a very active Black Market in BCR. So we were reviewing in our film section. We were reviewing older films and Sergey you through contact with his colleagues there said. Hey, no Lethal Weapon 3, please not not Cape Fear which is three months old. So we're treating popular culture fairly heavily in the paper because of this interest on the trips that I've made over there to try to get used to the feel and the enemy colleagues in izvestia and discuss content and so on with them and I've been unfortunate circuit comes here and spring I go there and winter and but but I've always been impressed by the Cheerfulness of the people in a very Bleak situation frankly their sense of humor is terrific and they tell jokes all the time. Some of which would have had him sent to jail 10 years ago one. I'll tell you Stalin Khrushchev and brush never in a train going to an important meeting the locomotive breaks down. Stalin says kill the engineer. Khrushchev's is not no, let's get out and push and brush nib said no pull down the shades and rock back and forth and we'll Pretend We're moving. There are jokes are both political and sort of self-deprecating about the difficulties of life that a word about the editor-in-chief of his question Igor galovski ego doesn't speak English any better than I speak Russian by the way, but we do have a rudimentary Communication in Spanish and used to be a correspondent in Spain in his younger days. But he is a tough straight on newsman as tough and straight as any I've met in the United States and in fact last August in if you had told this story City, I would have been sorry because I wanted to tell it while the coup was going on on the 19th and the 20th and the 21st. There was a coup in his vest you as well. We had begun negotiations for this joint venture with Igor. Who was then Deputy Editor in Chief? In a very outspoken anti-communist really who was getting into a lot of trouble through a letter because of a letter that he had written condemning the actions in Lithuania where they'd been some violence and the then editor-in-chief nickel nickel IE FEMA had decided that the solution for ego was to send him to Barcelona as the Spanish correspond ego declined to go then came the coup and then within the crew there was a coup at his vest year the staff voted the Hardline communist editor-in-chief Nicola out and ego in which pleased us greatly because our support from Nikolai had been somewhat marginal to that point. But from then on this project really picked up a great deal of speed. Although I must confess that on the 19th and 20th when I was listening to the news. I thought it was gone totally gone. So, I mean it's alive and well and flourishing. Sergei referred to some of the interesting complications in with when you have Russian and American journalists dealing together and I there is a very different writing style Russian journalists strive for a very personal style somewhat opinionated. They reach conclusions in stories, which of course we discourage reporters from doing here. But the other day the managing editor here in American said would it be a good idea if we could get a fax of the headlines in izvestia sent over each morning so that we have a feel for breaking news in Moscow and I suggested it to say gay who said we could do that, but it may not help and I said well why not he said well the headlines often don't tell you what's in the story. So as well, could we maybe have the first paragraph as well as the headline? And he shook his head rather sadly and said max that may not tell you what's in the story. Even you may find it very far from the top of the story maybe at the very end American system. As you very well know is to you know, your most Salient fact first and then you pyramid it down so that you can cut it. Anyway, this causes considerable concentration on the part of it is at both ends because as we are trying to americanize the Russian Stories, the Russian editors, of course have to sort of Russian eyes some of the American stories to make them flow a little better that they describe us as laconic staccato Vivid and pleased to say it but I think they're beginning to enjoy the style the rapid-fire style of an American story. One other important part of the paper and and then I will tell you another joke and then I'll hand it back to Rome. There's a business section in the paper, which is kind of an interesting challenge because in the Russian version, what we are trying to do is explain capitalism. You know, how do you use Commodities exchanges stock exchanges credit? How do you set up a business a partnership or Corporation? We don't do it on the baby talk level a bit because they're very sophisticated literate people and they're very very quick to learn but in the American version, what we try to do is to is to deal with the opportunities that exist with some of the success stories that have taken place in joint ventures that that are already in being there in that kind of informative material that we hope will help you help people like you here on the cultural side. We're out somewhat pop because there's a there's a keen interest in you know, You look entertainment figures here celebrities of all kinds and we try to deal with the more prominent ones. Madonna has had a prominent role in a couple of the addition. And so I think we've maybe banished Madonna for a while. But but it's an interesting. It's an interesting wonderful Challenge and I must say the level of professionalism among the journalists. The Russian journalist is very high. The audience that we're dealing with is highly literate and we get on our Metro there and everybody in the trainer's reading something in a book newspaper and magazine, but they're reading you get on a Metro in Washington and everybody's just sort of staring blankly and in space pretending that they don't exist for a while. Well, I mentioned that sense of humor and I'll close on this note ego of Glen bielski told me this story last time I was there and I guess it's about the current really speaks to the current situation. The scene is a Moscow automobile showroom man comes in to buy a vulgar. And the salesman said fine what color he said? I don't care. He's well, I got to have the color. I can't put you on the list and he's well, okay blue and he's well what kind of Hubcaps I don't care. I just want a car and is what you got to tell me what kind of Hope campus there are I can't put you on the list. He goes down a whole list of these things. They make the deal and the salesman says to the customer. Okay, come back at 11 o'clock precisely on June 19 1999 and the car will be here. And the guy looks a little sad and said I can't be here in the morning on June on June 19 1999 and the salesman looks at him a little startled and Civ God sake why is that's when the television repairman is coming anyway back to you. (00:29:22) We have two representatives of the Minnesota meeting in the audience taking questions. And would you like to start changing? Okay. question I'll try to repeat the question if you'll feel State the question. Russian (00:30:27) we've had a little microphone (00:30:28) problem here in central being listened to on the station's of Minnesota Public Radio for the purposes of the listeners. Let me see if I can't rephrase the question you would like to know from the editorial staff and from the publisher tighter definition of what the Russian Market will be since it has 250 million people rather than being a monolith to which you can publish a single item that it may be more Diversified than than we might think is that correct and you'd like to see if they're going to expand their editorial approach to take in all of the elements of the former Soviet (00:31:11) Society. I'll take part of that. and that has to do with the sheer economics of publishing and that is Max and Sergey and their colleagues in Moscow might feel that the demography that is available for this newspaper is four million. For example in this country. There are 15 to 20 million people fit the editorial demographic Target of the Wall Street Journal and businessweek. If there were three million people over there with similar kinds of demographic characteristics and Max and Sergey wanted to write for that group you couldn't do it because the advertiser that we are trying to attract in this country to have that company sell goods and services in in Russia couldn't afford to pay for the advertising. So that's a sheer fiscal side of it Max. You might have a different idea as far as how broad you might want to go from an editorial point of view. (00:32:28) We spend a lot of time discussing the audience that we wanted to address in in Russia and the other republics and ego the men I mentioned earlier kept referring to the intelligencia and to me the intelligencia is a very thin basically very thin layer of people in a Nobel Prize winners University presidents and so on scientist, he did not mean That it turned out as we went further into the conversation Intelligentsia is a term applied in Russia two people of superior education and many many of them have that and who work in what I would call upward White Collar jobs. So the other group that we very much want to appeal to other decision-makers in the potential business people in Russia and the other republics, however, because of their voracious reading habits and the relative scarcity of the kind of material that is in our paper we have found for example that there's a strong leadership among young women and I tribute that frankly to the fact that Russian papers in with due respect sir. I do not address women very well in their Pages we apparently did. How you hope that someone answers your question? (00:33:46) Can't thank you very much. Gentlemen, we have a question now from John Finnegan Junior. Thank you. I think this is a question maybe (00:33:54) for for Sergei. I'm interested in how in (00:33:58) the Moscow Branch (00:34:00) reporters and editors there will cover essentially stories or conflicts dealing with the government that perhaps the government would prefer not to see covered. That's a fairly common occurrence here. We have various kinds of mechanisms to deal with that. I'm interested in whether those mechanisms (00:34:18) are are also there in Moscow. And and if so, how do you deal (00:34:22) with that? The question Sergei is there are even in the United States. There (00:34:31) are methods by which the government and the (00:34:33) powerful can use to prevent the Free Press from exercising its journalism from reporting the stories and the presumption in the question. Is (00:34:45) that perhaps that exists as well in the Russian Republic how well will you be able to report those stories which the Russian authorities don't want reported. So you see thank you for question. It's a very good question. Now. I am not sure how long it lasts in future. But now we have no problems with the freedom of the press. So maybe we have too much freedom of the press in our country, which is not good to only one example, what do you think about teenagers or children say And almost pornographic magazines in the streets. So in in every other civilized country, it would be forbid it. So now we have a government who which which would like to read beautiful things about about itself. It's natural for for every government in every country, but it's a Quite impossible now because Perez Perez in the years of perestroika became really powerful factor in our country. So you we can argue who really began the perestroika Gorbachev with the help of various operators with the help of gourmet shop. So and it's it's really difficult for anybody for anybody in in our country to prevent some critics from breast from used media now because we have we have low about about connecting with the freedom of the press which is good enough and which prescribes the rights and the responsibilities of both sides of the government. I mean and of the press to and buy buy this Locker in accordance with this law is government or or some member of the government is not such a Sprite Which any article in the Press here. He may go to the court and It's the only solution for him or her. (00:37:38) Thank you very much. We have a next question here from Bud friend (00:37:40) Jones. Both of our (00:37:43) culture's are Multicultural. Both of our societies are Multicultural. So my question concerns the composition of your editorial and news (00:37:50) writing teens in terms of gender (00:37:53) race ethnic background both on the American and the Russian side. First part. The second part is how will the Rodney King verdict and it's aftermath play out in the sea is (00:38:02) Republics. Let me answer the question to the to the diversity of the start. We the 15 or so that had mentioned. We also have a group of stringers. I would say we're probably thirty percent female and 70 percent male. Beyond that I'm not sure of the ethnic backgrounds have some of our people or of the people who are working in Moscow beyond the American. I don't think we're as diverse is the country and as a staff. Let me and I will ask Sergei maybe to handle the other part of that question. (00:38:52) The other part of the question is how will the Rodney King verdict and the I presume the the riots which followed the decision in Los Angeles play in the Soviet Union former Soviet Union in the (00:39:07) Commonwealth. You see things happened in in LA and happening in LA. I need to say I not kind of any sensation for our people. We have everyday violence in our country too. So what we in connection with this topic we go to the request from from from our colleagues in Moscow and we suppose I think Max would agree with me that it's a good good request to explain the mechanics of a struggle against violence in the United States. So to cover everything which happened and continues to happen in La by Days by hours by minutes. So water what what American law says about this and about that what what is the law? Water authorities can do and well they are doing right and when they're doing wrong. So and if we if we are able to do these these things understandable for Russian audience. It could be very useful for us to so by all means we are going to cover such topics in our in our newspaper. So the most sharp themes connected with the Russia and the United States what I like to repeat in each case each issue. We need our own angle for covering those things and and we are looking for it. (00:41:20) Yeah, it is. Let me follow up on it. Would it be in the best interest of we to soft-pedal the darker side of the United States? Would it be in the best interest of the publication to go easy on that? (00:41:37) I don't I don't think that really is a question for me as much as it is for Max. (00:41:42) The answer is no we'll deal with all aspects of American society and all aspects of Russian and Ukrainian Society. There's been a lot of here in the US. There's been a lot of soul-searching about the role of the media in the in the LA riots and whether they should have gone a little softer a little quieter than they did. I as an editor. I don't see how you can I mean you when something terrible is happening. You better tell people it's going on in and let's face it. It's not the not the Toronto press that caused the outbreak in Toronto. It's the people the I'm afraid I'm a very strong very strong. Tell it all at (00:42:26) once thought and I don't know whether I did throw out this analogy about what we're trying to be editorially or not. I know you and I talked about it, but a big part of what we're here to do has to do with the role of business. I mean a very very Key charter as we all see it in the other folks who have founded this property is to help from a business point of view. So if we were to say this is going to be 1/2 Wall Street Journal and 25% Time Magazine and the other 25% people and Sports Illustrated would probably be fairly On Target. So if you think about your question CERN, where does that all fit in? I don't know. What did the journal say about what happened in Los Angeles. Did it disrupt business? Yes. Those are the ways we have to look at a lot of the issues that are going to be facing as I (00:43:26) believe. Thank you. You're listening to a special panel from we the first Russian American newspaper speaking to the Minnesota meeting on the station's of Minnesota Public Radio. We have another question here from Jeffrey Evans. I'm a Minnesotan who's been living in (00:43:41) Russia for the past two and a half years and I've been working there. (00:43:46) I've read the first three issues of we from cover to cover with great interest and I applaud vigorously your efforts. (00:43:52) I see a great value for both the Commonwealth and westerners for the Commonwealth. I believe the greatest value is not in the business information because there are literally scores of business Publications available to Russian readers. I see the greatest value and demonstration of Western journalists practices on the American side. My question is based on one of your comments. Mr. Mack ruin that well my observation is that the success stories the growing number of success stories in business with Commonwealth is really the most useful thing for Western businesses interested in getting into the Commonwealth. I'm (00:44:35) curious (00:44:36) what your approach is for collecting such information. About the success stories and how you approach the issue of (00:44:42) confidentiality. Well, thank you first for your compliments and we much appreciate that the success stories you mentioned, you know are interesting in any newspaper. When I was editor of the Los Angeles examiner. One of the most widely read features in that paper was a piece on how I made it it was about a an entrepreneur, you know who had started maybe in a garage or a small business and step-by-step made it to success. We got a lot of mail on that kind of information people are looking for specifics, I guess as to how we gather them. We were in the Russian end. We rely on the on the on the staff at the we officers in Moscow to ferret them out here. We have tried to hire some reporters who have had Russian experience one of the young people working there worked for Commerce and one of the papers that you mentioned in Moscow for quite some time just the Either the business reporters on an American Paper would function in seeking the story the kind of entrepreneurial success stories that I mentioned earlier, but you make a very good point. I think people, you know, when you read these success stories in it and the one I always and I mustn't regrets to fire success stories go like this too much of the time say a profile of Onassis the leader of necessary Stallone as it went to Argentina when he was 22 and took a job as a night telephone operator in a hotel. Paragraph when he bought his first tanker, you know anything. Hey, hey, wait a minute. Something happened in between there that you're not telling us and people rightly look for that sort of specific in a story and as an editor I demanded but anyway, I didn't mean to give you a journalism life. So (00:46:40) I have a question having to do with the kinds of advertising in the kind of advertising that is currently in the publication and the kind that you seek in whose best interest. Would it be and name names if you would in terms of us corporations to advertise in in a publication that would have 300,000 Publications available to people in the Commonwealth. (00:47:06) We see the advertiser base as being basically American multinational companies who are just about to go there who are planning to go there who have to establish an awareness about who and what they are is (00:47:24) that mean let me end represent me like a long American lines recognition of brand (00:47:28) names caused by something that will be on the shelf that for the consumer. We don't we don't see this being a particularly good vehicle at the moment for Consumer products. Not that Levi isn't building a plant in Poland to make so many genes that they'll be able to cover Russia with Reebok has got a booth at a u.s. 92 it exhibits. It's happening in about a week or two over there. So they'll have Dee Brown slam dunking basketballs on the side of the Kremlin, but the problem is all the marketing of those products is out of Frankfurt or out of Zurich or So talking about the business purpose of the paper communicating with the Intelligentsia IE people who make things happen over there. We think that the ideal Advertiser can be the IBM's or the three Em's or the (00:48:32) just on and on and on the airline's (00:48:34) the (00:48:36) the banking industry. It's everybody who's trying to get over there and shortcut along long lengthy period of developing a name and an image and (00:48:48) identity. It does the advertisement take on a different sort of look than what we might be familiar with if we were looking in opening up a USA Today and we see an ad for the Apple Macintosh and and it has splashing and tell us all the fun things. You can do would the advertisements which appear in we the Commonwealth Persian be more like info ties moments which is a product and explaining what that product can do for (00:49:18) you. I don't think so. My perception of it is not apples a good example Apple has put forth these state-of-the-art Macintosh systems and they are going to be represented in the Commonwealth of independent states by a company who's doing this job over there. So they want to they want to put Macintosh systems into Russian newspapers into Publications into everything that Apple Mac systems now do so wonderfully and I see no reason why they would have to do something different. I don't think Citibank if Citibank were over there now. I don't think that want to say anything other than we can you know, where your source of financing. (00:50:13) Let's go to Ken darling. (00:50:14) Thank you very much. Gentlemen, we have a question now from Jack Finnegan who used to have to worry about publishing a paper in the Twin Cities the st. Paul Pioneer Press. (00:50:24) Thank you Ed maybe you will answer this question. I know that newspapers these days tend to want to project what their profits are going to be and you're now starting out on a very high-risk Venture. First of all, how long do you think it will be before you project a profit for this publication? And how long has Hurst willing to underwrite and get into deficit financing to get this publication on his (00:50:51) feet? All I can say about that is is that it's my understanding that the newspaper. By itself in the Commonwealth of independent states can sustain and grow by just selling single copy sales as far as a global. As far as a Global newspaper, the hard currency aspect of that is going to have to come from here as opposed to in the Commonwealth of independent states. And I think I can't quantify exactly how far out we see the prophet beginning to come in. We don't know exactly about the ruble and the convertibility. I think Hurst has got pretty good staying power on this and I can't say weeks months years, but I will say that in the beginning the corporation was not universally in a bird with the project. Is that about as it's a pretty understated ring? There's you know family heritage and that sort of thing that might mitigate against are doing business with those people over there, but the pendulum has swung the other way and everybody is becoming very very enthusiastic about it and Hearst Corporation being a private company as long as the right people are enthusiastic about it. It's got some pretty good standing cock. I don't know whether that's a good answer. I can't show you a p&l and that sort of thing but I think as long as the trends are right. For from advertisers in this country and as long as we see some growth in circulation, I think we're here to here to stay (00:52:48) we have time for a couple more questions question here from Bob kruseman. (00:52:52) The 45-year Cold War may have been the greatest man-made disaster in history. Will your (00:52:57) newspaper attempt to analyze the mistakes made by both sides which allowed it to last this long? I guess that's to tell you the truth. We won't spend a lot of time analyzing the last 45 years. And the reason for that is that that Russian newspapers Ukrainian newspapers newspapers all over that continent are highly analytical highly analysis oriented in their stories. I think we would be late to the to the discussion and frankly. I think people want to put it behind them. They want to know what's next rather than what happened. What went wrong and I know I feel that way myself as a reader of of Of us papers. Well International papers. If you look back too much in your editorial Pages you would you sort of a achieve a kind of staleness on I was feeding got to push forward. in the stories I guess it's very dull to tell you the truth. I'm sorry happen again. I have to confess it could happen again. I think that's a pretty remote possibility. But yes, it could happen again, but I fear the lessons are not thanks General learned a lot from them. We've got time for one quick final question and it's comes from Matthew Murray. (00:54:35) There's been a lot of good news in u.s. Russian relations in the last month or so with the announcement of the new Russian aid program, but there's also been some pretty serious bad (00:54:44) news (00:54:46) with what happened with Vanessa condom back in its decision to freeze the banks bank accounts of many Western companies. Now, I have a theory that there's a bit of a conspiracy of Silence of foot among the Russian press and the Western press on that story. I know that we me did one story on the whole issue. I was wondering if you were going to follow (00:55:07) up. Yes. We probably will and to tell you the truth met. I think the reason the story didn't get a better play in other newspapers The Wall Street Journal dealt with it very well. The thought in the New York Times, but when you get outside of that kind of level, I think it's just not well understood and then that's the reason it gets underreported. There's also a very repressive taxation structure in place right now in Russia, which is very discouraging to overseas businesses, and we will we going to do with that (00:55:40) one, too. Words, perhaps we are regarding the business sections the most important for our newspaper. So and our experience says that this big business section was noticed by government officials in Moscow. And in the future we are going to be very very Frank very critical about all wrong decisions. Because they're there were mistakes and mistakes are possible in future. So but somebody somebody is needed to True discover this mistakes to explain why why why they are mistakes. So and by all means we would like to represent the American point of view the point of view of American Business on on different decisions of our government. (00:56:54) Thank you very much the sometimes things move so quickly that we get moving with them. So it doesn't look like there's any movement at all. The fact is what too long ago that we were all afraid that we're going to die at the hands of the Russians and and times have certainly changed and I think Sergey said it best without actually perhaps knowing that Said it when he points out that not only is the Press free today in what used to be the Soviet Union perhaps I might be a little more free than anywhere else in the world times have been changing around us. I'm going to turn it over now to Terry Saria and at this point we will simply break away the bulk of the program having been concluded quick reminder that broadcasted Minnesota meeting are made possible by Oppenheimer wolf and Donnelly providing commercial core.