Muckraker on Soviet TV Is Shot, Wounded

MOSCOW —  A popular television journalist known for his aggressive crime reporting was shot and wounded by a stranger who lured him to an isolated Leningrad park with a promise of explosive documents, Soviet media said today.

Alexander Nevzorov, anchor of the daily “Six Hundred Seconds” news program from Leningrad, was shot at point-blank range late Wednesday.

One of Nevzorov’s colleagues said on Soviet television the popular journalist was wounded in the chest, about two inches above his heart, but the bullet passed through his body without damaging any vital organs.

Nevzorov, one of the country’s best-known independent journalists under President Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s glasnost reforms, was reported in satisfactory condition today at the Leningrad Military Medical Academy.

The gunman escaped, the reports said.