Goriachie Novosti (Hot News)

Bill’s ultimate crie du guerre against Russia’s political establishment during our dinner manifested in a passionate rant against the Russian media, “You won’t believe the amount of bias, anti-Americanism, and lies they show on Russian news, it’s an absolute sham. I don’t even watch it. Thankfully, we have CNN on our cable.” Unfortunately I didn’t have Fox or CNN to compare the American biases to the Russian ones, and in the end resorted to the dispassionate BBC for a balancing act to the grossly outlandish tales concocted by the Russian media in Bill’s view.

Much to my surprise, instead of the expected grotesque contrasts, I discovered a trend of convergence in local and international news. Both BBC and Vesti reported on the same international stories, sometimes even in the same sequence. Pavarotti’s death was the first story that I simultaneously observed on the two channels, which ran lengthy tributes to the departed tenor under similar headlines, but differed quite a bit in presentation and content. Vesti spun a Russia-tinted account of his life that sounded a bit sentimental to my un-trained ear, while BBC prepared a chronological factual brief none of which connected to the British public. The Russian correspondents constantly infused hard facts with their own analysis and opinion, spoon-feeding an interpretation of his life to the audience. Vesti’s attractive blonde correspondent in Modena dug deep into Pavarotti’s roots, narrating a humanizing rags-to-fame tale of his ascent to tenordom from humble working class roots. Vesti dabbled through Pavarotti’s repertoire, sprinkling it with his reflective quotes on the love of Russian opera. In one interview the great tenor even joked that Russian music was so close to his heart that he must have surely been a Russian composer in his previous life. A clip of his last concert, which took place in Moscow according to Vesti, concluded the tribute. Thus, while BBC presented a distant, factual account of Pavarotti’s life, Vesti came full circle to Russia by relating the Western tenor to its audience, and it was actually Vesti’s account that gave me a more comprehensive story, which was also much easier to retain through its various associations than BBC’s sparse factual package.

Yet even BBC dared beyond facts in another parallel story: Putin’s visit to Indonesia. In its geo-political analysis BBC concluded that Russia’s foray into the Far East surely meant to counter US influence in the region. Vesti had also spun this tale, albeit with an overwhelming emphasis on influence. An important fragment of Putin’s speech was aired in which he underlined his party’s electoral platform of the solid five year growth record that turned Russia into a powerful economy to be reckoned with by other nations. Fascinating footage of imported Russian tanks, Russian-built stadiums and tsunami relief followed, culminating in a fuzzy scene of Russian language classes where veiled girls sang Soviet war-time song “Katuisha.” Hearing “Katuisha” in Indonesia was certainly a new experience.

The theme of Russian influence abroad was omnipresent in local news, and continued in the coverage of Putin’s APEC attendance, this time focusing on the far-flung Russian brethren in Australia. While BBC solemnly reported on APEC meetings, Vesti ran features on anti-revolutionary “white” Russians. After they were defeated by the communist “reds,” the “whites” fled communism to China, but as the red “klin” (wedge) spread to Asia, were forced out to Australia’s capitalist haven. A Russian grandpa showed his religious relics and contemplated on the difficulties of cooking steamed dumpling ‘pilmeni’ in Australia’s heat. Apparently, Russian influence had benevolently spread to the Australians too, as self-taught Australian musicians jauntily jingled on balalaikas, and a Russian Orthodox convert claimed that despite his Irish descent, his soul was Russian – genuine and pure, filled with drama and passion just like the Russian music.

The biggest news during my Russia sojourn was the resignation of Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov. BBC reported that Putin replaced Fradkov with little-known Victor Zubkov, and once again suggested that this change was effected to ensure Putin’s unlimited power. Turning to Vesti, I was certain that these speculations would never be aired, but once again Vesti had factually confirmed BBC’s position by airing Fradkov’s resignation address to Putin. In it Fradkov openly admitted that his resignation was meant to pave way for the president’s unlimited power ahead of parliamentary elections. He was thereafter commended for all the positive changes Russia achieved under his leadership, changes that the government pushed through, as clarified by Putin in another pitch to his party platform. The new figure recommended by Putin, Victor Zubkov, was a gray face to the public, but enthusiastically praised by almost all opposition parties. The days approaching Zubkov’s election – rather confirmation – as Prime Minister were filled with stories of his merits, a rushed introduction to the public. After a week of publicity the Putin-recommended candidate quietly took over un-contested. These sudden yet smooth-sailing changes were like marionettes at play, yet the people around me didn’t seem to mind, falling back on the law, order and some degree of prosperity that Putin brought them during his reign.

Local election coverage focused almost entirely on the incumbent President, whose whereabouts and actions were tracked on a daily basis. When not meeting with heads of State, Putin was constantly on the move, checking up on his country’s progress. One day he criticized the local government in Kamchatka (Vesti mentioned that those responsible for this neglect had born “punishment”). The next day he held a video conference on education from a government-renovated school in Siberia, show-casing newly built facilities. The tireless president then visited a dairy farm modernized with government-borrowed money, and took a stroll through nearby federal settlements. All these travels were done in justification of Putin’s Committee on National Projects, which created pockets of government-funded well-being throughout Russia.

For its non-Putin election coverage Vesti occasionally mentioned the countdown to parliamentary elections, showed expansive voting quarters, and assured the viewers of strict adherence to international election norms. The local news also gave general background on opposition parties, including occasional coverage of opposition activities. However, even tScarce as it was, this marginal coverage of opposition activities did not in the least bit interest the people around me, especially after the dark, depressing Yeltsin years, remembered as dangerous by Aldo and my parents. Bill and Jake’s fervent debates on American elections affected polite indifference among my Russian co-workers, who looked upon this election obsession as a strange American peculiarity.

Another common theme threading through Russian news coverage was terrorism, and Vesti reported on “extermination” and “liquidation” of terrorist leaders almost every day, showing rag-clad Asiatic corpses near small piles of Kalashnikovs, or blurred naked corpses in the morgue with speckles of blood on hirsute limbs. After the capture of a major terrorist, Vesti aired footage of his attack on a children’s parade, as well as Putin’s threats of retribution: “Eto podonki u kotoryh net nichego sviatovo, no u nas est pravo k nim tak zhe otnestis” (These are scoundrels for whom nothing is sacred, but we also have the right to treat them in the same way). To me these lines stopped short of the graphic imagery used by another leader, “This act will not stand; we will find those who did it; we will smoke them out of their holes; we will get them running and we'll bring them to justice.”

The daily dose of stories on Russian military might usually counter-balanced this fear-inciting coverage of terrorism, and a Vesti field correspondent scoured the country’s army outposts, delving into the scale and grandeur of on-going army exercises. Massive ships, tanks, submarines, airplanes and helicopters engaged in battle action, while interviewed soldiers told us how proud they were to be a part of the Russian army. Even celebrities frequented army bases, the renown film director Nikita Mikhailkov explaining this fascination as “the rebirth of our self-respect, the importance of Russian navy and army not for war defense or attack, but as life-style and tradition.” The Army was cast as a rite of passage to manhood, not a dreaded duty from which mothers tried to keep their sons by bribing doctors for non-existent illness certificates. Still, little was in the news on improvements in soldiers’ onerous living conditions, or the eradication of wide-spread hazing resulting in serious injuries or even deaths. I wondered if this glorification of the Army had actually done anything to dissuade the prevalent aversive attitudes towards it, or if it was just a show of military might purely for the eyes of the beholders.

As for matters concerning anti-US bias, most Russian criticism, much like the rest of the world’s, was rather aimed at Bush and his policies. Bush’s APEC/OPEC and Australia/Austria blunders amused both Vesti and BBC audiences. Greenspan’s anti-Bush memoirs made it to the tops of Russian headlines, while coverage of the 911 commemoration featured bizarre footage of Bush puppets attacking the world. BBC’s commemoration also featured anti-war protests, albeit less arduously. 911 was my first week in the City, and to my freshman eyes, had cracked its inhabitants nut-shell, revealing their soft human meat underneath. Our post-tragedy days were filled with clothing drives, candlelight vigils and moments of silence in the coming together of communities not only in the city, but all over the world. There were certainly no knife-wielding Bush puppets. Sadly, the news had perverted and sullied these memories in its yearning for pushy sensationalism of the inciting and scandalous, and the resulting compartmentalization of 911 into a vast chronology was cheap. I wondered what Fox and CNN had to say on this subject, and if perhaps their account had vested more thought and memory of the actual event.

The most contentious point in US-Russian relations during my sojourn was the US-proposed missile defense base in Eastern Europe. Vesti supported its indignation with this brazen act of aggression with mathematics from an MIT professor who stated that the US proposed system was aimed directly at Russia and not at “the Iranian threat.” When the Americans rejected Russians’ proposal for a system closer to “the threat” in Azerbaijan, they set off a plethora musings over this security farce and its disastrous implications. Bush policies aside, Russia’s coverage of the US was actually quite neutral, abounding in stories such as Steve Fossett’s rescue and the return of Russian church bells from Harvard. Devout babushkas hailed America’s angel rescue of the bells from Bolsheviks as God’s intention. Seeing this neutral American coverage, I really wondered why Bill was so incited by it. Perhaps all the Bush-bashing had hurt his Texan pride after all, despite his liberal loyalties.

If not as much in foreign policy, then most certainly in news, the Russians were just as partial to the Jewish cause as the Americans. The post-Soviet Russian-Jewish Diaspora to Israel had raised keen interest in Israeli happenings. Israeli soldiers were injured by a Palestine rocket in one incident, while in another, Israeli authorities arrested a group of Israeli fascists. Parallel coverage of both stories appeared on BBC and Vesti. The Vesti features abounded in Russian-Jewish witnesses, doctors, law enforcement agents, and victims’ relatives who gave testimony in Russian, without translators. It turned out that some of the fascists were not very well integrated children of Russian-Jewish émigrés and the consensus, this time among non-Russian Israelites, was to strip them of Israeli citizenship. Thus, while BBC aired facts and casualty images, Vesti once again presented its audience with a personal account of their Russian brethren in Israel.

It was a bit difficult to adjust to the lyrical narration of Russian news after years of factual Western packages. Mother told me that in Soviet times, the news were also quite different, in fact packaged, stamped and delivered much like Western news today. However, with USSR’s fall, Russian news coverage was returning to its roots, reclaiming the richness and passion of the Russian language. The language of the news was morphing into the language of the people and their emotional state, searching for soul in all corners of earth, as far out as Israel, Indonesia or even Australia. That tendency to describe and tell a tale, to guide the audience by the hand to the desired conclusion was definitely at odds with the Western promotion of questioning individualist thought. The Socratic method clearly had no place in Russian news. Still, what others considered kitsch had actually made the Russian stories much more memorable than the factual spatter of the West.