How Neo-Soviet Can Russia Possibly Get, Part II: Annals of Russian "Journalism"
Filed under: Russia
As reported by BBC Russia (link in Russian), the image on the right above is the actual front page of the Times of London from Monday, July 30th. On the left is a Photoshopped image of that same edition created by the state-owned RTR television network's "Vesti" evening news broadcast. The headline "Berezovsky is Playing Us, and it's Embarrassing" did not appear on the actual front page of the paper. Instead, it appeared above an opinion blurb by a "guest contributor" named Stephanie Marsh which was published deep in the paper's inner recesses. Apparently, the clueless clods at RTR didn't even know that the Times had undergone a format change in the appearance of their print edition, and used the old version in their nasty little fraud. More details here and a furious British editorial on the subject here.
How neo-Soviet can you get? In Soviet times there was a saying about the USSR's two leading "newspapers" Pravda ("The Truth") and Izvestia ("Information"). Russians used to joke that "there is no truth in Izvestia and no information in Pravda."
Everything old is new again. If Kremlin-controlled media is willing to sink to these depths when things are going relatively well for the Russian economy and there is little opposition, can you imagine how far they'll be willing to go when things get bumpier?
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