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Ilze ŠULMANE
version, while a journalist from NRA stressed that the print and Internet version are two completely different products with different audiences. The economic crisis has made the papers reduce other expenses, e. g.: the VS editorial office has moved to a less expensive place; renovation of the newspaper’s editorial premises (in Chas) has been postponed; many more journalists have to work in the same space (journalists from the Diena and Dienas Bizness). Journalists from competing papers, e. g. LA, expressed some kind of malicious satisfaction and disapproval about the great financial losses experienced by Diena, because they felt Diena’s journalists had long lived too lavishly. Several journalists from Latvian language papers, particularly in 2006, expressed their firm belief that VS and Chas are partly financed from Russia. In 2006 journalists were quite critical of their competitors’ editorial policies and contents. They stressed the differences in writing style of Latvian and Russian journalists in Latvia and also clearly defined characteristic traits of different newspapers of the same language, being extremely critical of their closest competitors: Diena versus NRA; Chas and VS versus Telegraf, and Chas versus VS. The main conclusion was that it seemed impossible for the journalists to move, for instance, from Diena to NRA or vice versa, or from Telegraf to Chas or VS. In 2010 the borderline is not so sharp any more. This can be viewed in the personnel change: a journalist who specialized in economics moved from the Russian language Telegraf to Diena, and some professional journalists were bought by richer newspapers (e.g. from Chas to VS). This can be evaluated as a tendency of the falling “purchasing difference” of the daily papers’ brands and of the unification of form and content in the newspapers. In the case of Diena, already beginning in 2006 hiring journalists from a Russian language background has been also a part of editorial policy. In a 2006 interview Diena’s editor-in-chief did not acknowledge any changes toward the simplification of contents in order to obtain larger audiences. Widening of themes was admitted, but not at the expense of serious topics, such as politics, economics and culture. Some concern about late awareness of the newest competitor – the Internet – was expressed, but, regardless, Diena was the first to establish its Internet version. Some of the rank and file journalists, however, already at that time pointed to some commercialization tendencies connected with the need to earn more money (to enlarge audiences) and thus to losing some characteristics of quality journalism in Diena. Among the difficulties partly caused by the economic crisis, journalists name the wide use of public relations materials (due to the time constraints of journalists) and also pressures from PR firms and advertising departments: Latvian daily press journalists: Between or together with commercialization and partisanship?