RUSSIA - Feb. 26 - Venediktov Quits.

Alexei Venediktov, a 46-year-old editor-in-chief of the most influential private radio station Ekho Moskvy, says he and dozens of other journalists are quitting rather than work for a news outlet, which is becoming another voice of the state. He says: "I am not going to work for a radio station that belongs to the state. I prefer to keep my reputation but not my job". (The resignation is announced less than three weeks after Gazprom-Media, a subsidiary of state-controlled Gazprom, moved to seize control of the station's board of directors. Ekho Moskvy lost financial independence in June when Gazprom-Media took over 51% of the station's shares. But the station's board remained autonomous until this month, when Gazprom-Media exercised its right as majority shareholder to name five of nine directors). Venediktov says he believes a change in editorial policy is not far off, and the only hope for him and the station's reporters to practice objective journalism is to find another frequency. On Feb. 27, Venediktov and 12 other Ekho Moskvy journalists won the bid in a state auction for a radio frequencies on the same FM band as Ekho Moskvy.