#3 - JRL 2006-131 - JRL Home
RIA Novosti
June 6, 2006
The perils of stereotyping

MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Vladimir Simonov) - Just imagine the Supreme Court in Moscow ruling that Russian civil servants can no longer publicly criticize their superiors for misconduct, thus in fact denying people in public office freedom of speech. Ask professional reporters what would ensue.

Around 1,700 editors of newspapers and magazines from 104 countries who have gathered in Moscow at the 59th World Newspaper Congress would of course know the answer. Should something like this happen, there would be an outburst of public indignation across the global press and political elites, probably led by such people as U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, jumping at any opportunity to chastise Russia for "unfairly restricting the rights of its citizens."

Now imagine that the same thing happened in the United States. The Supreme Court there has overruled the verdict of a federal appeals court who supported a prosecutor in California allegedly demoted in retaliation for publicly testifying to his bosses' "grossly inaccurate" statements made in the course of a criminal investigation. In a divided 5-4 rule, the high court in fact defied the inferior court's reference to the First Amendment, claiming millions of U.S. government workers did not deserve freedom of speech protection, for the simple reason that "exposing governmental inefficiency and misconduct is a matter of considerable significance."

That uncovering "governmental inefficiency and misconduct" has been declared a legal offence is not the worst part, though. The worst part is that the news about whistles being formally ripped out of the hands of whistleblowers has been almost totally overlooked by mainstream global media. The American Civil Liberties Union seems to have been the only organization to rightfully stir a commotion about it, accusing the Supreme Court of making it "easier to engage in a government cover-up by discouraging internal whistleblowing." Try to find more, and you will see the U.S. free media have largely ignored the event, at best releasing it way behind some global politics and showbiz stuff. Which would have included, had something like this happened in Russia, yet another self-righteous outcry against "creeping authoritarianism in the KGB-dominated Kremlin."

We the reporting folk are best served when we are independent. At the same time, independence, being our professional addiction, often prevents us from acknowledging, despite sometimes strong evidence to the contrary, that we are just people and can be blinded by stereotypes as easily as - if not easier than - any man next door.

One false stereotype about America is that of a land where a human rights violation amounts to no more than an occasional misfire in a well-oiled engine of democracy. One false stereotype about Russia is that this country deliberately oils up its own engine driving it back from democracy. The story of a gag order imposed on millions of Americans is just one thing that just goes to show stereotypes can mislead. There are many others.

Consider the row about the Strategic Communications Secretariat (SCS), a 16-man cloak-and-dagger Pentagon propaganda department, which had long been claimed not to exist and was reportedly behind the famous 2003 footage of an Iraqi worker welcoming U.S. tanks as they entered Baghdad, crying out "Thank you, Bush! God bless America!", which - absolutely by coincidence - was caught by a very lucky cameraman and was then sold to the unsuspecting American public.

Whether it was the SCS or one of many PR agencies hired by the government who orchestrated the footage is still unclear. What is very clear, however, that the disclosure of it being fake news was like chipping off the tip of an iceberg. More ice popped up, as the think tank Center for Media and Democracy revealed. A recent CMD report suggested at least 77 U.S. TV networks knowingly re-broadcast fake news reports originally produced by the Video News Releases (VNR) channel in the past 10 months, leaving their audience in the dark about real events.

Last week the Federal Communications Commission, the U.S. national media watchdog, acknowledged - after long delays and under immense pressure from rights groups - that fake news glossing over the Iraq war had been distributed in the U.S., Iraqi, and other media by nearly 20 various government agencies. In a separate investigation, at least three prominent pro-conservative commentators have been revealed as being on government payroll for using their appearances in talk shows and televised political debates to promote this Administration's policies.

Last but not least, Pentagon had to admit that it had hired D.C.-based Lincoln Group and other Iraq consultancies to place pro-American articles and news releases in Iraqi media. Well-intentioned U.S. reporters would send them back (or forward, as they thought) home, adding credibility to fake news.

The scheme worked as long as outside observers were blinded by the stereotype that America does not engage in Soviet-style propaganda. Yes it does, and very much so, for all its mature democracy. So who has the moral high ground to criticize Russia where democracy is still in its teens?

The point of this piece, however, has not been to make a case against this or that nation. It has been to strengthen the case of the ongoing World Newspaper Congress against stereotyping. Stereotypes are as perilous for Russian reporters as for their Western counterparts.

Democracies can be different. He who has no stereotypes let him see. Trying to understand would also help.