#17 | September 11 - 24, 1997  

by Abram Kalashnikov

The imperialist American author Vladimir Nabokov once wrote that the best character any writer ever creates is his reader. A good reader, he said, is one who seeks to enter the world of the writer's individual genius, rather than identify with one or two characters, "skip descriptions," and see what happens in the end.

Journalists, as a rule, do not create good readers. It's against their interests. Instead, they try desperately to draw simple storylines which fit into their absurdly small narrative spaces and can be returned to over and over again to satisfy their readers' need for quick plot resolution.

Most journalists will deny that they are in the business of story-telling. Instead, they say that they are in the business of relating facts. Paradoxically, journalists refer to their articles as "stories." Most, however, are referring to a story that they believe exists already without their help-one which they will recount in print, but not "tell," not embellish, not recreate.

There is probably no better example of this mass self-delusion among the journalism community than the continuing storyline, created over more than a decade since the inception of perestroika, of "reform" versus reaction in Russia. From a story of Machiavellian power struggles that is immensely complex and suitable only for a good reader, journalists have struggled mightily to make a storyline worthy of a bad reader, resulting in a steady stream of pure disinformation. It's like trying to reduce a high prime number: you can say 83 divides by 4 as long as you like, but it doesn't.

Coverage of the assassination of Mikhail Manevich was an excellent example of the difficulty Western correspondents had in keeping their "bad reader" alive. The reader who wanted to "skip descriptions" and follow a few characters was told that in this instance, the "young reformer"-a character they'd been following in countless other articles previously, in disguises that varied from "Anatoly Chubais" to "Boris Nemtsov" to "Maxim Boiko"-was gunned down by reactionary forces, imperiling the cause of "reform."

Daniel Williams of the Washington Post, in an article entitled "Assassination of St. Petersburg Reformer Dims City's Hopes," demonstrated just how hard Western reporters have had to work to keep this gig going. The trouble starts right off the bat, in the lead to the piece:
"After six years of languor and mismanagement had made it appear that the new Russia was passing this historic port city by, things began to turn around. New ideas and new programs gave the impression that maybe-just maybe-St. Peters-burg would start moving. Then someone killed Mikhail Manevich."

Okay, let's go back for a minute. St. Petersburg, you might recall, is now governed by one Vladimir Yakovlev, who only last year was described as an enemy to reform by most Western reporters. His predecessor, Anatoly Sobchak, was for half a decade the darling of the Western press, one who made St. Petersburg a "crucible of reform," as it was often described. Now, suddenly, St. Petersburg was languid under Sobchak, and reforming under Yakovlev. Williams does a little rhetorical gymnastics to pull this one off, claiming that Manevich and his reform pals had a real influence on Yakovlev.

But Williams has a problem. In order to preserve the sanctity of the "young reformer" character, he has to follow a few simple rules. They are a) Under no circumstances must the enemy of reform (i.e. Yakovlev) be given credit for reform, and b) under no circumstances must a reformer be accused of hindering reform. He pulls off the former with his gymnast trick, but the latter condition results in a little confused algebra when Manevich's pal Anatoly Chubais arrives to deliver the eulogy:
"In unusually impassioned terms, First Deputy Prime Minister Anatoly Chubais, Yeltsin's chief manager of reform and a friend of Manevich, said, 'I want to say to those who pulled the trigger and those who paid for this with their dirty, stinking, stolen money: We will get all of you.'"

As did most of his colleagues, Williams here gave Chubais a pass. It would have taken up too much space, and irrevocably clouded the "reform" picture, to point out that Chubais has been the chief conduit of "stolen" money since communism collapsed. Manevich may indeed have been what he appeared to be: a zealot who was having a tough time overturning an ingrained system of municipal tribute. But because reporters like Williams are so respectful of their bad readers, his death has served mainly to cast Chubais, a figure who is absolutely black with corruption, as part of a team of courageous fighters for economic and social justice. The bad readers come out of Williams's article happy: the good readers come out with nothing except the quotes, from which he has to reconstruct the story himself. Another reason journalists prefer bad readers who "skip descriptions" is that their descriptions, more often than not, are so canned and predictable. Truly original writing is difficult and time-consuming, and most journalists prefer to leave that work to academics and fiction writers-in short, people more prolific and less well-paid than themselves.

Yet another Williams, Press Review regular Carol J. of the Los Angeles Times, proves the maxim in a recent piece on the 850 celebration in Moscow. "Neither snow nor rain," she begins, "neither good taste nor individual freedom was allowed to intrude Friday on the start of an 850th birthday bash..."

Even I, a Russian, knows that the canned phrase Williams is trying to rip off begins "Neither rain nor sleet..." and not "Neither snow nor rain..." And simple parallel structure would tend to dictate three comparisons rather than the four Williams achieved by tacking on "individual freedom." Whatever. When you let your reader know that you won't even make the effort to avoid botching a cliche, you're telling him he's a bad reader.

Williams goes on to make some interesting assertions. She notes that the "toiling masses," a group she recently had cheering in unison for Boris Nemtsov, left town, presumably to continue cheering Nemtsov, to avoid the traffic jams created by the 850 birthday bash. Then, in the same article, she suggests that the whole celebration was in bad taste, since it was not toned down in honor of Lady Diana's death.

Could you imagine how Americans would have reacted if a Russian reporter had suggested that the World Series be canceled or postponed to honor the passing of Leonid Brezhnev? In fact, toning down the 850 celebration in honor of a woman who was born into ungodly wealth and married into still more ungodly wealth would have been an insult to those very same "toiling masses" who were offended by the celebration to begin with. Her reference to Mother Teresa makes more sense, but I didn't notice the LA Times, CNN or any of the other Western news bureaus pre-empting Lady Di coverage to pay homage to that small Indian nun, whose only crime was that she was not, like "Di," close friends with Versace. So why should Luzhkov one-up the Times?

This Best and Worst issue, frankly, has me depressed. Under worst, I hope they give me the award for "Worst job." No Russian who reads the Western press as much as I do can ever be paid enough for his services. The 850 celebration? Almost every writer in town, including the people from the eXile, found a way to call it a farce. Manevich assassinated? A good guy goes down: support his friends in the Kremlin. Maybe I'm not a bad enough reader, but this story, so thoroughly predictable, is starting to bore me.