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23.01.08
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Death Eaters
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Comment by Georgy Bovt
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Deprived of Real Work, the Media Tracks the Life and Death of Pop Culture Figures
If there is one thing that the Russian media has learned to do very efficiently and on a wide scale, it is how to cover obsessively the death of every pop culture figure, from the most famous to the generally obscure. It would be hard to name a public figure in Russia today who would be able to escape the omnipresent press that is sure to chew over his illness, suffering or sudden death without sparing the sinister and gory details.
It seems that in covering the dramas, illnesses and tragedies of public figures, the Russian media is trying to get revenge for all the humiliations, restrictions and even repressions they have been subjected to in the last few years. It’s like this: if we can’t really expose any political corruption scandals; if we can’t carry out truly independent investigations; if we can’t write all the nasty details about political or financial deals and intrigues, then let’s just bring all of our “quasi-free speech” force down on popular figures.
This stylistic platform has diminished the gap between the Russian “yellow press” and the press that had pretensions of respectability. It used to be that only the paparazzi would hunt down pop stars and spy on oligarchs. The serious papers would write reports from the Chechen war front. Now there are almost no reports from the Caucasus and everyone is focused on Roman Abramovich’s latest flame.
But everyone is tired of this society rubbish already. The readers and publishers demand stories with more and more intense passion and dramatic effect – the kind of passion and dramatic effect that can only be delivered by real illnesses, accidents and death.
Actor Nikolai Karachentsov, who was in a serious car accident, was followed around for many months, and the country closely followed the humiliating details of his trauma. He was followed everywhere. The writers of these stories gave no thought to the feelings of his wife or his fans, who remembered their idol as a completely different man.
The same fate befell the actress Natalya Gundareva when she was struck with a severe illness. The press did not let her go until her death.
Photographs of Alexander Dedyushko flooded the Internet as soon as he and his family perished in a car accident even though he was not particularly famous. And it looks like the image of the talented actor Konstantin Khabensky will very soon be overshadowed by the details of his young wife’s serious illness.
The press started burying the actor Alexander Abdulov as early as a few months ago. Despite his enviable acting talent and many brilliant roles, he never enjoyed much popularity in the mass media. Until he was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer.
As soon as Abdulov was under ground, the press targeted Alexander Shirvindt, who is also supposedly seriously ill. The Theater of Satire, which he heads, had to reply with a drastic disclaimer in the form of a press release.
For over a week now, though, the newspapers and Internet sites have been filled with details of the car accident caused of well-known radio show host Gennady Bachinsky in the Tver Region.
He committed a gross violation of traffic regulations: he drove into opposing traffic and crashed into an oncoming van. He died and caused severe injuries to four other people. This is a tragedy, an irreplaceable loss for his family and colleagues. That’s true. And we can sympathize with all of them. But why make a tragic victim of circumstances and his own negligence into a hero? And how long can you savor and chew over the details of a car accident? How much can you speculate about the fact that supposedly not long before his death, he wanted to join a monastery, and generally to keep making up things that never happened?
How much longer will the Russian media keep worshipping death and keep building this questionable cult, forgetting, as it seems, many norms of journalist ethics and morals? Probably as long as they meet resistance of force to covering real events or until their readers become seriously interested in the real problems of modern Russian society, the only law that matters will be that of demand and inevitable supply. |
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