Issue #23/48, September 24 - October 8, 1998

by Abram Kalashnikov

When the going gets tough, the tough get going. But what do reporters do in a crisis? Answer: a lot. They negotiate for raises. They turn the volume up on their television sets. And they work the phones night and day to make sure that their opinions on the unfolding events are cited in print more often than their competitors' opinions. It's hard work, and it makes for trying times for the average stability-loving hack.

The recent financial crisis has forced the corps of Western hacks and pundits to bound into action, with each more desperate than the next to look like the most prescient, right-thinking, and responsible voice out there. The standard currency in the resultant print traffic is a thing people are calling the "Who Lost Russia?" piece, an article which ostensibly seeks to assign blame for the Russian socio-economic collapse. There are several required elements of a "Who Lost Russia?" piece. Among these are:

a) a tone of calm, steely unconcern, as if to say, "What are you all excited about? I expected this to happen all along," and "I told you so."

b) Lots of matter-of-fact references to complex economic phenomena which the hack never discussed under his byline before, but which he now feels obligated to demonstrate through-and-through knowledge of. "Of course, as everyone knows, a currency board only works in a country with a dependable central bank," is the kind of comment you'll frequently find emanating from the "Who Lost Russia?" piece, despite the fact that just a week earlier the hack in question had no idea what a currency board is.

c) A macho emphasis on passages courageously predicting "hard times ahead" and "sacrifice" and "pain," in a tone suggesting that the reporter himself will be suffering right along with the Ivanov family from Izhevsk.

d) Passages assigning blame for the crisis to communists, or to oblique and unsubstantiated "corruption" in the Russian government, or to the failure to "go far enough" in backing reform. In short, everyone must be blamed except the actual guilty parties.

Just as we expect them to be the breaking news leader, Russia watchers should turn to The Washington Post first when seeking the Conventional Wisdom answers to their favorite "Who Lost Russia?" questions. Fortunately, Post writer Fred Hiatt, the same man who last year praised "Baby Billionaire" Vladimir Potanin, came through with a classic "Who Lost Russia?" piece just this last week.

Hiatt's self-conscious "Who Lost Russia" eulogy first anticipates the critics of establishment figures like himself, then answers them ahead of time with a list of ready-made excuses:

"A popular version goes something like this: Russia's self-proclaimed reformers stripped a modern nation of its industrial might, impoverished the masses and enriched a corrupt elite. Things could have turned out differently had the reformers privatized more slowly and fairly, put in place a social safety net, tolerated some central planning and supported the nation's industrial heartland. But in their heartless Chicago-school fanaticism, the young reformers spurned a softer, Sweden-style capitalism that Russians might have tolerated in favor of a rigorous Chile-style market.

"This argument always reminds me of something Yegor Gaidar, Russia's first and still most admirable reformer, told me soon after the Soviet Union collapsed, as he pondered the economic and social wreckage - not to mention empty coffers - that Mikhail Gorbachev and predecessors had bequeathed him. If we do everything right, maybe in 20 or 30 years we will have the luxury of choosing between the Chile model and the Sweden model, Gaidar said then, adding that he could be happy with either. Right now, he said, he was just looking for a way to survive."

Thanks to Hiatt, we can now safely blame last month's financial collapse not on Anatoly Chubais, or the abovementioned "admirable" Gaidar (who has been living off rent from an academic building he privatized into his own ands while still Prime Minister), but on the insurmountable financial difficulties caused by 70+ years of Soviet government. You see, actually, in the end, it was all the communists' fault.

More importantly, Hiatt's "Who Lost Russia?" piece makes sure we don't forget the most important thing about the Russia story-namely, that Hiatt is on a first-name basis with Russia's Prime Ministers. If there's one thing we learn during this crisis, it should be that.

Like Hiatt, most "Who Lost Russia?" authors don't move from their seats more than they ever did, but they compensate by being more hysterical than usual. Kari Huus of MSNBC, for instance, made the most out of a stay in the Radisson-Slavjanskaya Hotel, making sure to give online readers up-to-the-minute reports "on the ground" from the inside of the four-star hotel:

"Leaving behind Russia's economic maelstrom last week required one last, ugly bout with it. As I waited to check out of Moscow's Radisson Slavyanskaya Hotel, the front desk printer zipped back and forth tallying up several pages of phone charges, at $7 a minute. (Calling the U.S. from Moscow costs more than three times the same call originating in the U.S.) Then it tacked on 20 percent for value-added tax. Ouch."

Boy, Russia really is feeling the crunch! Later in the piece, Huus glances around the lobby to give us more crisis news:

"Criminal gangs have carved the country into fiefdoms said to control more than 50 percent of all economic entities, including state firms, banks, and stock exchanges. You certainly can't miss, for instance, the beefy guys who populate the lobby of the Radisson Hotel."

Folks, that's not just reporting the story, that's reaching out and grabbing it by the throat. Somebody call the Pulitzer committee, quick! Kari Huus found the Russian mafia! They're disguised as security guards in the Radisson. One thing I always hate to see, as a media critic, is a reporter who limits himself to mere relating of facts, suppressing his/her creative and intellectual instincts in favor of the bloodless formulae of straight journalism. Huss, thank God, was never in danger of that, bravely overcoming the pressure to conform and refusing to deny her readers the great wisdom she knows she's capable of sharing. She ends her "Who Lost Russia?" piece on the correct note, with a moralizing conclusion that serves notice to us all: things would have been a hell of a lot different if Kari Huus had been in charge.

I don't know about my faith in the system. But my faith in the security of Radisson hotel lobbies is definitely restored. In fact, I think I'll head over there right now. I wouldn't want to miss the big story.