Boris Jordan, a young U.S. banker chosen by state-dominated Gazprom to run Russia's only independent national television, NTV, has shrugged off concerns about free speech and vowed to give the controversial station real independence.
Jordan out-manoeuvred angry journalists who saw the new director as a threat to freedom and refused to allow him into the premises by staging a dawn raid on NTV studios.The move prompted many senior reporters to leave but left him in control.
True to his image of a smooth operator, Jordan described the takeover which caused a public outcry as a seamless operation, saying it filled with joy those ready to work under him.
"Tremendous enthusiasm to rebuild the company, tremendous enthusiasm to really build an independent television station, lots of energy", an elated Jordan told reporters, describing the mood of staff backing the new management team.
The 34-year-old financier, who speaks fluent but strongly accented Russian, was put in charge of NTV by natural gas monopoly Gazprom at a contested boardroom coup which ousted the station's founder and former owner Vladimir Gusinsky.
Gusinsky's companies owe millions of dollars to Gazprom, where the state is the main shareholder. Liberals and many NTV journalists see Gazprom's takeover as a Kremlin plot to silence a vocal critic.
Gazprom disagrees saying it simply wants to recoup its investment.
Jordan returned to the theme on Saturday, saying that the further he delved into the company's accounts the more debts came to light.
"Just today in my very short time here, over the last seven hours, I have discovered massive debts", Jordan said, adding that he was finalising talks with domestic and foreign banks on a 20 million syndicated loan to recapitalise NTV.
Jordan dismissed out of hand any suggestion that under him the station would soften its stinging criticism of the Kremlin. He promised to give NTV the true independence it had never enjoyed under Gusinsky.
I will do an audit with Arthur Anderson and Price Waterhouse and I will publish it for the whole world to show everyone what was going on in this company, he said.
Now we will have free speech, now we will have independence of the media.He justified his news team's initially subdued coverage of the takeover, which topped news headlines worldwide, saying there was limited public interest in commercial disputes.
Jordan, a descendant of exiled Russian nobles, may be a newcomer to television but he is an old hand in Russia where he made a name for himself in chaotic post-Soviet privatisations.
His appointment at the helm of NTV was met with an initial gasp, but analysts explained the surprise move by pointing to Jordan's close ties with Alfred Kokh, the new chairman of the NTV board who as a minister once oversaw Russia's scandal-ridden privatisations.