Zakaznaya statya

[Timothy D. Sergay]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Olga Meerson" <meersono at GEORGETOWN.EDU>
To: <SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU>
Sent: Monday, June 18, 2007 9:06 PM
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Zakaznaya statya


> Zakaznaia stat'ia is usually ideologically engaged and commissioned for ideological selling out or brainwashing--not merely for commercial advertisement.


Dear colleagues,

With “zakaznaia stat’ia,” as with the general term “zakaznaia aktsiia,” I think the idea is that the “client” doing the commissioning is as likely to be the government as any other major player. In “politicheskii zakaz” (often enough said of a verdict reached by a court of law) it’s understood that the “client,” the zakazchik, is indeed VLAST’, the government. The modifier “zakaznoi” in all cases indicates a thing made or done “to order” or “for hire”: this remains its distinguishing feature. Ideology or money are possible terms or “economies” in which that transaction is conducted. An article “planted” at the instigation of government authorities, for political, ideological, or state-economic motives, or any mixture of such motives, is “zakaznaia”; one “planted” by a major private company to boost its sales and stock value is likewise “zakaznaia.” Vse eto -- zakazukha...
I am grateful to all the SEELANGers who have ventured ideas on this problem. Here is the draft of my entry for “zakaznaia stat’ia” as I have it now:zakaznoi: ... zakaznaia stat’ia, zakaznoi material (media): “a commissioned” [“for-hire,” “paid-for”] article [piece]. Gloss: “an article or broadcast segment written or produced strictly for hire by a journalist, paid for by an interested party--whether in cash or in more discreet forms of quid pro quo--, and presented in a news media outlet in a format indistinguishable from that of standard editorial content, a practice sometimes referred to as zakazukha, kosukha, ‘disguised advertising.’ Unfortunately for the integrity and reputation of the Russian news media, since the early 1990s this practice has helped substantially to keep Russian media outlets financially viable.” Solutions: (a) For the practice of zakazukha: hack [mercenary, sell-out, shill] journalism (cf. “a carefully crafted piece of shill journalism straight out of the Advanced Placement textbook on selling out” [list.pacificgreens.org]), fee-based press coverage, propaganda disguised as news coverage [as editorial content]. (b) For concrete instances of zakazukha: a hack piece, a shill article, a planted article (E. Wayles Brown, SEELANGS, 06-18-07), a sell-out article, a paid-for [news] article, a custom-written "news" article. N.B.: the English terms “infomercial” and “advertorial” refer to paid-for copy placed in a media outlet that is nevertheless supposed to be clearly identified as paid-for. Informercials and advertorials not identified as paid-for would indeed be zakazukha. The anglophone Russia press has used these terms in quotation marks, with knowing irony, to refer to zakazukha, presuming that readers are in on the joke. The Russia Journal has also used the term “pay-per-say”: “…the newspapers that define attitudes and respect for a nation’s heritage should stop acting like prostitutes with ‘pay-per-say’ articles” (Russia Journal, April 24-30, 2000, cited in Johnsons’ Russia List, № 4263, 23 April 2000). See Mochenov, Nikulin, et al., Slovar’ sovremennogo zhargona rossiiskikh politikov i zhurnalistov (Moscow: OLMA-PRESS, 2003), s.v. zakazukha.

Naturally, the term “wh*re journalism” exists in English, too, and could conceivably be of use in handling some coarser contexts in which zakazukha appears, but I’m reluctant to include it in my menu of solutions. It’s heavily politicized in US English contexts, for one thing. Something like “strictly mercenary press coverage” would probably do just as well.

Best wishes to all,

Tim

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