Soviet television viewers who watched the news one night last month glimpsed something extraordinary. There, on the screen, appeared scenes of a drug bust in Moscow, complete with pictures of needles and an unidentified white powder. While the camera showed police rushing into an apartment and arresting its occupants, an announcer explained how the suspects had tried to hide the goods, but to no avail.
That report is just one more example of Soviet Party Leader Mikhail Gorbachev's policy of glasnost, or openness, in the media. Over the past year the state-run press has been exploring the problems of Soviet society...