section_path: Domestic policies/The media
section_name: The media
paragraph_text: The media
  
  Scott Gehlbach, a professor of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, has claimed that since 1999, Putin has systematically punished journalists who challenge his official point of view. Maria Lipman, an American writing in Foreign Affairs claims, "The crackdown that followed Putin's return to the Kremlin in 2012 extended to the liberal media, which had until then been allowed to operate fairly independently". The Internet has attracted Putin's attention because his critics have tried to use it to challenge his control of information. Marian K. Leighton, who worked for the CIA as a Soviet analyst in the 1980s says, "Having muzzled Russia's print and broadcast media, Putin focused his energies on the Internet".
  
  Robert W. Orttung and Christopher Walker reported that " Reporters Without Borders, for instance, ranked Russia 148 in its 2013 list of 179 countries in terms of freedom of the press. It particularly criticized Russia for the crackdown on the political opposition and the failure of the authorities to vigorously pursue and bring to justice criminals who have murdered journalists. Freedom House ranks Russian media as "not free", indicating that basic safeguards and guarantees for journalists and media enterprises are absent. About two-thirds of Russians use television as their primary source of daily news, while around 85% of Russians get most of their information from Russian state media.
  
  In the early 2000s, Putin and his circle began promoting the idea in Russian media that they are the modern-day version of the 17th-century Romanov tsars who ended Russia's " Time of Troubles ", meaning they claim to be the peacemakers and stabilizers after the fall of the Soviet Union. Since the 2022 Ukraine invasion, Putin has only once granted an interview to a Western journalist, namely Tucker Carlson in February 2024.