Putin appoints homophobic presenter to head state news agency

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, tightened control over his country's media on Monday by dissolving the main state news agency and replacing it with an organisation aimed at promoting Moscow's image abroad.

The move to abolish RIA Novosti and create a news agency to be known as Rossiya Segodnya (Russia Today) is the second in two weeks strengthening Putin's hold on the media, as he tries to reassert his authority after protests against his rule.

Most Russian media outlets are already loyal to Putin, and opponents get little airtime, but the shakeup underlined their importance to Putin's hold on power and the Kremlin's concern about the president's ratings and image.

The head of the agency to be built from the ashes of RIA Novosti is a conservative news anchor, Dmitry Kiselyov, who has proved a loyal Putin supporter, at times making provocative remarks. In 2010 he said homosexuals should be banned from donating blood or sperm and last year he said they should also be banned from donating organs.

"The main focus of … Rossiya Segodnya is to highlight abroad the state policy and public life of the Russian Federation," said a decree signed by Putin. Sergei Ivanov, the president's chief of staff, told reporters that the changes were intended to save money and improve the state media.

But the new organisation has strong similarities to APN, a Soviet-era news agency whose role included writing articles about "the social-economic and cultural life of the Soviet people and items reflecting Soviet society's point of view on important internal and international events".

RIA said in an English-language article: "The move is the latest in a series of shifts in Russia's news landscape which appear to point towards a tightening of state control in the already heavily regulated media sector."

Rossiya Segodnya's focus on building up Russia abroad could solidify Putin's grip on information by further limiting sources of news for Russians, whose TV screens are dominated by state-controlled channels.

Putin's decree appeared to have little effect on the two other major Russian news agencies, the state-run Itar-Tass and private Interfax, but it could benefit both by making RIA's replacement less of a competitor domestically.

Itar-Tass is the successor of the Soviet-era official Tass agency, while Interfax has more leeway as a private agency but is restricted by the Kremlin's dominance.

The Kremlin extended its grip over radio and television broadcasting on November 26 when the media arm of state-controlled Gazprom bought mining tycoon Vladimir Potanin's Profmedia.

Through the deal, the former Soviet gas ministry – now Russia's largest firm by revenue – will add TV and radio stations, cinemas and film production and distribution assets to a sprawling portfolio built up around commercial channel NTV.

The Kremlin already funds an English-language TV channel called RT, which was initially known as Russia Today. It is not clear whether the two will operate separately and RT's head, Margarita Simonyan, said she had been unaware of the move.

The new organisation will be created in RIA Novosti's headquarters in central Moscow, but the fate of the agency's journalists and other employees was not immediately clear.

RIA Novosti was created as the Soviet Information Bureau in 1941, after Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union, and issues reports in Russian and foreign languages.