Glasnost Comes to TASS

By ANN BLACKMAN MOSCOW

It seems that almost no news is good news for Moscow's leadership these days. The Soviet economy continues to sputter; ethnic tensions are flaring; independence movements are gaining force; Communist regimes are collapsing all over; and the Soviet population is increasingly disgruntled. Surprisingly, some of the fullest, frankest reporting of these events has come from none other than TASS, the official Soviet news agency and long an uncritical government mouthpiece. In a report from Lithuania last month, for example, TASS cited a description of that republic's "1940 joining of the Soviet Union as a 'violation by outside force' of the sovereignty of the Lithuanian State."

Can this be the same TASS that has been known chiefly for its dull, turgid reporting and its habit of tucking important news into the last paragraph? The captive wire service that was run by and for the Soviet government, peddling propaganda before facts? It is indeed, but something remarkable has happened to the 1,300 reporters, editors and photographers who are currently working in 113 countries for TASS. After Gorbachev took over in 1985 and launched the era of glasnost, the news agency faced a new challenge: to enhance its credibility by reporting more aggressively, more thoroughly and more accurately than ever before. Nowadays the agency's attitude is reflected in the instructions given by Grigory Arslanov, 55, director of TASS's coverage of socialist countries, to his staff in Bucharest: "I gave them one order. Write the truth and describe the real situation there."

The big turnaround has been presided over by TASS Director General Leonid P. Kravchenko, 51, who took up his job 15 months ago, after serving as editor in chief of the trade-union newspaper Trud and as a top official at the state committee for television and radio. Sitting in his walnut-paneled office on the eighth floor of TASS headquarters, located just a few blocks east of the Kremlin, Kravchenko declares that there should no longer be any taboo subjects for TASS reporters. "We are going through our own perestroika here," he says. "I want our journalists to be known by their writing, professionalism and style." But he concedes that change does not come easily, particularly in a country where censorship has long been considered a form of patriotism. "Now we tell our correspondents that they must break their own psychological barriers and not consult with the embassy or Foreign Ministry before issuing a story." To be sure, the old ways have not totally died at TASS, and the government still exerts influence on what is reported. In a story on the dispatching of troops to control uprisings in Azerbaijan earlier this year, for example, TASS added that "these measures have been justified and urgently needed." But much of the pressure comes from the old habits of journalists rather than from state directives. Says Vladimir Baidashin, 45, head of the agency's world-services department: "We try to be objective. But after so many years of censorship, we started censoring ourselves."

Even more dramatic changes may be in the offing if, as expected, the Supreme Soviet passes the revolutionary new press law that it has before it. "The rights of journalists will be broadened to a degree we could only dream about in the past," says Kravchenko. "Some people joke that we will have more rights than criminal investigators. We will be able to demand information from any agency and have access to any meeting and any event."

Kravchenko admits that his tenure at TASS has not been without problems. Last year the agency ran a sensational piece about an electrician who supposedly survived being trapped in a cellar for 35 days after the Armenian earthquake. The story proved to be untrue, and TASS was obliged to publish an apology. Even more embarrassing was the ridicule that greeted the agency's report last October that an alien spaceship had landed in a Soviet city.

"We sometimes make mistakes," Kravchenko admits. "It took us twelve hours to report an accident involving a nuclear submarine. We thought the delay was too long and criticized the Defense Minister, who withheld information for a long time. But that was great progress compared with the time we reported the downing of a Korean airliner three days after the incident."

Now that he is winning more battles to get information out of his government, Kravchenko has set his sights on an ambitious goal: to rival Britain's Reuters and the U.S.'s Associated Press as a respected international + news source. One reason is that TASS, though heavily subsidized by the state, must increasingly rely on the hard-currency income from its 1,200 foreign subscribers in order to meet a budget that surpasses 100 million rubles (the equivalent of $160 million at official rates).

For their part, many TASS subscribers feel they are getting more for their money these days. Says A.P. President Louis Boccardi: "There's no question in my mind that they're moving in the direction of more straightforward, factual reporting."

In order to vie with his competitors, Kravchenko is reorganizing and expanding TASS's news coverage. Six months ago, for example, he assigned five TASS correspondents to the Baltic region, where controversy over independence provides daily headlines. He has also put together a task force of twelve editors and reporters who specialize in ethnic problems. Kravchenko demands explanations from his staff whenever the foreign agencies beat them on a story. Says the director general: "I suggest we raise a black flag over TASS when we are late in reporting developments." But Kravchenko is not satisfied merely to outreport the others on his own turf; he has begun hiring native English speakers to improve the quality of copy sent to foreign subscribers. And, in perhaps the sincerest form of flattery, TASS has even adopted the A.P. stylebook.