One really can’t satirize this kind of “journalism.” All one can do is point out its awfulness, its neglect, its illiteracy, its ignorance. It is the kind of “journalism” the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission must have in mind in the way of its “reinvention.” It was written for public consumption, as entertainment. It could have been a White House press release. The article could also have appeared in The National Enquirer, headlined: “Russian and American Presidents on First Date!” Subtitled: “They’ll keep in contact, says Medvedev. Romance blooming?”
On June 24 Yahoo! News carried an Associated Press item on the meeting that day between President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Washington. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss differences in foreign policy between the United States and Vladimir Putin’s personal preserve. It is fairly common knowledge that Medvedev is simply Prime Minister Putin’s ventriloquist’s dummy.
But the author of the AP article, Ben Feller, decided to downplay the seriousness of the meeting by focusing on food and folks. Matters like nuclear weapons, the Russian invasion of Georgia, strife in Kyrgyzstan, and the World Trade Organization were relegated to subsidiary importance. Not mentioned in the article were Russia’s aid in helping Iran generate nuclear weapons fuel or the missile defense system in Eastern Europe which Obama dropped on Putin’s growling insistence. One can’t know if these matters occurred to Feller at all. He did remember the Soviet adventure in Afghanistan, but only as a sly dig at the U.S. presence there today.
The buzz around the White House centered much more on the presidents’ unexpected jaunt for cheeseburgers to Ray’s Hell Burger in Virginia — Medvedev took jalapenos –and less about the many substantive matters they discussed.
Instead, readers are treated to a visit to local burger joint and a “stroll in the park.” The entire article is hooked on the notion that Obama and Medvedev are just buddies who decided to eat out instead of in. It was such a pleasant experience for Obama that he remarked:
“We may be able to finally throw away those red phones that have been sitting around for so long,” Obama said, evoking the symbol of scary U.S.-Russia relations. Obama said that was doable because both men have Twitter accounts, although he flubbed the line, calling the social networking site “Twitters.”
“Scary symbol”? And what did Feller report as the chief topic of discussion?
“You know, sometimes it’s odd when you’re sitting in historic meetings with your Russian counterpart to spend time talking about chicken,” Obama conceded in describing an agreement to export U.S poultry products to Russia.
Yes, chicken. Not quite the same thing that was agreed on in the Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact in 1939. Not quite as “historic” as Obama might wish to believe. It’s as bad as reading an article or watching a Nazi newsreel about what the Führer did yesterday with Mussolini. They lunched on sauerkraut and rigatoni at a local beer hall, rubbing shoulders with the hoi polloi. Wonder what Molotov, Ribbentrop, and Stalin had for lunch before signing the Pact? Sauerkraut and borscht? Washed down with toasts of Riesling and vodka? Feller assumes that enquiring Americans want to know! It’s “human interest.” Never mind that serious stuff.
Ribbentrop noted about the Pact:
Stalin used the significant phrase that although we had ‘poured buckets of filth’ over each other for years there was no reason why we should not make up our quarrel.
Did any of this occur to Ben Feller, who wrote the AP article? No sense of history?Not even a tickle of memory of it? No sense of irony? In about a quarter of the word count, Feller could have reported that Medvedev and Obama discussed nothing of importance. The “cheeseburger summit” was a non-event. He could have speculated, however, on what they talked about for an hour and three-quarters on the phone. How to put the screws to Israel?
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