Issuing of “Moskovsky Correspondent” newspaper has been suspended. Artem Artemov, the general director of the “National Media Company” has announced that he has decided to stop financing this newspaper and to suspend its issuing due to exceeding expenses and due to disagreement with the editorial board regarding the newspaper’s concept”. He also informed that the editor Grigory Nekhoroshev has resigned. Mr. Artemov said that “There is no politics in this decision, as it is a purely business matter”.   

The newspaper was first published on 1 September 2007. It got known after it published a scandalous text by its correspondent Sergei Topol where he affirmed that he had some indirect information about personal plans of Vladimir Putin. The publication was printed 12 April 2008. That information was reprinted by many Internet sites and by the international media. Vladimir Putin also expressed his attitude to the publication. When visiting Italy, he answered to a question by Nezavisimaya Gazeta (fittingly,  Independent Newspaper) whether it was true that he was going to marry a famous gymnast Alina Kabaeva, and was going to divorce with his wife, and whether it was true that his daughter had married and was living in Munich. According to the President’s official site he said that there was not a word of truth in all that. Besides, he said his attitude was always negative to those who put their “flu-affected” nose into other people’s private lives, being guided with their erotic imagination.      

Sergei Topol, the author of the scandalous article – he worked only two weeks in the newspaper – answered to a question by a Novaya Gazeta correspondent like “I am well and I have no flu.” To his mind, the newspaper was closed down because it had never been profitable and its investor (Alexander Lebedev – N.R) got tired of financing it.