Article on Russia in The New Yorker

[David Powelstock]

Same here. We just had the Carter thing here at Brandeis. I attended the
event, which was very civilized and enlightening, from several perspectives.
But if you'd only seen the media, you'd have been surprised to find the
campus still standing when you got there. This was a very instructive for
me. I would add, though, that the most pervasive problem is the
incompleteness of the accounts--even the good ones. The word sensationalism
comes to mind. It's market driven and widely acknowledged to be a serious
threat to print journalism in particular these days. (The Boston Globe just
announced that it's closing its last three foreign offices.) If I looked
hard and wide enough I was able to piece together a complete and more or
less balanced version of events. I had to weed out a surprising number of
"reports" by persons who, upon further inspection, had not actually been
there. Incidentally, and by the same token, this makes me wonder whether the
authors I write about would recognize themselves in what I write about them
. . . . 

Cheers,
David

David Powelstock 
Asst. Prof. of Russian & East European Literatures 
Chair, Program in Russian & East European Studies 
Brandeis University 
GRALL, MS 024 
Waltham, MA  02454-9110 
781.736.3347 (Office) 


-----Original Message-----
From: Slavic & East European Languages and Literature list
[mailto:SEELANGS at listserv.cuny.edu] On Behalf Of Peter Scotto
Sent: Thursday, February 01, 2007 3:01 PM
To: SEELANGS at listserv.cuny.edu
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Article on Russia in The New Yorker

I just want to say that almost every time I have been personally involved in
an event, subsequent journalistic accounts were, almost invariably,
factually inaccurate.

Peter Scotto
Mount Holyoke College

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