New Yorker: Article on Depopulation and AIDS

[David Powelstock]

       Michael: You've got the ammunition, you should write a pithy letter
to the New Yorker.
       David Powelstock
       
       -----Original Message-----
From: Slavic & East European Languages and Literature list
[mailto:SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU] On Behalf Of Michael Denner
Sent: Wednesday, October 13, 2004 10:21 AM
To: SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
Subject: [SEELANGS] New Yorker: Article on Depopulation and AIDS
       
       Dear Colleagues!
       
       I wonder if anyone else had the same reaction to this week's New
Yorker article on AIDS and depopulation in Russia (I've appended it in two
installments because of length limits). 
       
        
       
       I've always thought of the New Yorker as the premier news magazine
for accurate and insightful news stories. Specter's article, though, is
third-rate and full of gross inaccuracies, exaggerations, and false
synecdoches. 
       
        
       
       For instance, Russia is either equated or compared negatively to:
Bangladesh, Pakistan, Yemen, Africa as a whole, Kenya, China, India, and
Turkey. Perhaps the most ridiculous claim in the article is that before
World War II, Russia was a "third-world nation." Does the author know what
it's like in a third-world country? Does the author know anything about the
history of Russia in the twentieth century? 
       
        
       
       The population estimates offered in the article portray the most
pessimistic forecasts as the "best case scenario." The crazy statistic of 80
million people is from Sergei Yermakov, of the Research Public Health
Institute (no citation in the article, of course, for the source, but I've
followed the demographic debate closely over the last few years). However,
Yermakov's statistics are generally viewed as unsupportable by most serious
demographers in Russia and the US. 
       
        
       
       The claim that HIV is not covered in the Russian press is also
ludicrous -- Kommersant ran an excellent series of very long features on the
AIDS epidemic in May of this year -- not exactly a progressive,
anti-governmental, or alarmist newspaper. 
       
        
       
       We read about surgeons using hotplates for sterilizers -- as though
that were true in all hospitals in Russia. And the rumor (which I've never
seen substantiated in the Russian press) of soldiers begging for bullets at
Beslan, as though that were true of the Russian military in general. Would
it be accurate to claim that the US military is underfunded and incompetent
based on stories of soldiers buying body armor on eBay? There's limited
truth in such synecdoches, but to infer from the author's isolated
experiences and random readings that these facts hold true generally is an
example of what good journalists DO NOT do. 
       
        
       
       What's clear to anyone who's lived, worked, and spoken with Russians
is that the article is written by someone with very limited and naïve
knowledge of how things actually work in Russia - remarkable in a magazine
whose editor in chief is David Remnick. From the first sentence on, Russia
is portrayed as some exotic, backwards, "oriental" place. Foolishness.
       
        
       
       Best,
       
       mad
       
        
       
        
       
       ()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()
       Dr. Michael A. Denner
       Russian Studies Program
       Director, Honors Program
       Stetson University
       Campus Box 8361
       DeLand, FL 32724
       386.822.7381 (department)
       386.822.7265 (direct line)
       386.822.7380 (fax)
       http://www.stetson.edu/~mdenner
       
        
       
       
 
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