New Yorker: Article on Depopulation and AIDS

Wed Oct 13 18:30:17 UTC 2004

I am slightly amused that you all are surprised.  My experience, living
in Russia from 1994-1996 and again for all of 1999-2000, is that if you
spoke Russian, understood the culture, etc. you usually worked for an
NGO, some major corporation or were doing graduate work.  If your
Russian was really weak and your grasp of the country was limited, you
worked for one of the news agencies or the embassy.  Of course I am
overstating the issue, but I had a lot of experience with the Moscow
Tribune and the Moscow Times people and most of them had limited
language abilities, which always made me wonder how they covered Russian
news stories.  

As for the "major" news outlets, when the situation in Chechnya first
flared, I got a call from my father who was watching CNN and frightened
about the "tanks on Red Square."  Having just crossed Red Square, I
assured him that all was quite peaceful and that there were no tanks --
even if CNN said that they were there.

Cheers,
F

*************************
Dr. Frederick H. White
Memorial University  SN3056
German and Russian
St. John's, NL   A1B 3X9
Ph: 709-737-8829
Fax: 709-737-4000
Office: 709-737-8831
*************************

-----Original Message-----
From: Slavic & East European Languages and Literature list
[mailto:SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU] On Behalf Of David Powelstock
Sent: Wednesday, 13 October, 2004 12:32
To: SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] New Yorker: Article on Depopulation and AIDS

       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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