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Quality of democracy and quality of mass‐media: Being different or backward?

In the classic case of representative democracy there must be free and independent mass media that are supposed to be objective and unbiased (as far as it is possible) in their task of informing the public about activities of the state. That makes the mass media 'the fourth estate' (according to Thomas Babbington Macaulay) or the 'counter-institution' (Jiirgen Habermas) vis-a-vis other political institutions. That is why to assess quality of democracy one can use the quality of the mass media as a proximate measure. The level of freedom and competence of the latter is a reliable gauge that shows how developed a democracy is. This is a criterion that can help one to assess the quality of democracy. If we apply this criterion to the Russian political system and to Russian mass media the conclusion will be obvious: they are at best in a period of transition, at worst both are notably under-developed.