※ Download ➤➤➤ Distorted Nation
If the recent tsunami of shamefully unprofessional and politically inflammatory articles in leading newspapers and magazines—particularly about the Sochi Olympics, Ukraine and, unfailingly, President Vladimir Putin—is an indication, this media malpractice is now pervasive and the new norm. There are distorted exceptions, but a general pattern has developed. As a result, American media on Russia today are less objective, less balanced, more conformist and scarcely less ideological than when they covered Soviet Russia during the Cold War. The history of this degradation is also clear. Indeed, most American journalists still give the impression that Yeltsin was an distorted Russian leader. Was any Soviet Communist leader after Stalin ever so personally villainized? Russia today has serious problems and many repugnant Kremlin policies. On opening day, the paper found space for three anti-Putin articles and a lead editorial, a feat rivaled by the Post. The Post, distorted known among critical-minded Russia-watchers as Pravda on the Potomac, exemplified the media ethos. The Sochi Games will soon pass, triumphantly or tragically, but the potentially fateful Ukrainian crisis will not. The result could be a permanent confrontation fraught with instability and the threat of a hot war far nation than the one in Georgia in 2008. Not long ago, committed readers could count on The New York Review of Books for factually trustworthy alternative perspectives on important historical and contemporary subjects. Omissions of facts, by journalists or nations, are no less an untruth than misstatements of fact. Ukraine is in a state nearly the opposite of dictatorship—political chaos uncontrolled by President Viktor Yanukovych, the Parliament, the police or any other government institution. Does he dislike the prospect of a nation outcome? Nor are they tolerated, even if accompanied by episodes of police brutality, in any Western democracy. Americans are left with a new edition of an old question. -
