American Journalism and Russia's Tragedy (Page 5)

The following abbreviations are used: Business Week (BW); Johnson Russia List, e-mail (JRL); Los Angeles Times (LAT); The New Republic (NR); New York Times (NYT); Washington Post (WP); and Wall Street Journal (WSJ). Considerably more evidence and examples appear in my Failed Crusade: America and the Tragedy of Post-Communist Russia (New York, 2000).

2. "A Test of the News," supplement to NR, Aug. 4, 1920.

3. Jim Hoagland in WP, Nov. 6, 1992; Rose Brady, Kapitalizm (New Haven, 1999), pp. 242-43; Thomas Friedman in NYT, Oct. 24, 1999; Steven Erlanger, ibid., July 28, 1993; David Hoffman in WP, Sept. 19, 1999.

4. Ellen Shearer and Frank Starr, "Through a Prism Darkly," American Journalism Review, Sept. 1996, p. 37; Anthony Olcott in WP Book World, June 27, 1999, p. 6. For a general indictment of press coverage, see Matt Bivens and Jonas Bernstein, "The Russia You Never Met," Demokratizatsiya, Fall 1998, pp. 613-47; and Mark Ames and Matt Taibbi, The eXile (New York, 2000). For references to factual errors, see my Failed Crusade, p. 252, n. 17 and p. 264, n. 92.

5. Leonid Krutakov interviewed by Matt Taibbi and Mark Ames in JRL, Oct. 23, 1999. For "giants," see Lee Hockstader in WP, Jan. 1, 1995. For examples of sourcing, see Steven Erlanger in NYT, April 9, Dec. 4, 1993; Fred Hiatt in WP, March 26, 1995, Dec. 10, 1996; and David Hoffman, ibid., Dec. 13, 1997. On the other hand, Russia's many opposition politicians and economists were rarely quoted or interviewed, except to be dismissed. Still worse, there is little evidence in the coverage that US correspondents in Moscow read the Russian press.

6. NYT editorial, Dec. 14, 1993. Similarly, see David Hoffman in WP, Oct. 1, 1995.

7. For Yavlinsky, see Michael Specter quoting Michael McFaul approvingly in NYT, May 5, 1996; and similarly the NYT editorial on May 1, 1996, and Specter's dispatch on May 18, 1996. For "clean hands," see Michael Wines on Sergei Stepashin, ibid., May 13, 1999; and, similarly, Michael Gordon's promotion of the inexperienced and inept Sergei Kiriyenko, ibid., April 12, 1998.

8. Alessandra Stanley in NYT, June 10, 1997; David Hoffman in WP, Jan. 10, 1997; and Carroll Bogert in Newsweek, March 21, 1994, p. 51.

9. Vladimir Kvint in NYT, Jan. 24, 1993; James Ledbetter in Village Voice, May 28, 1996; Robert V. Daniels, Russia's Transformation (Lanham, Md., 1998), p. 193.

10. John Kohan in Time, Dec. 7, 1992; Celestine Bohlen and Thomas Friedman in NYT, April 15, 16, 1999, and similarly the editorial, June 6, 1999.

11. Bivens and Bernstein, p. 620.

12. Michael Gordon and Alessandra Stanley in NYT, Oct. 17, 1996, Nov. 17, 1997. Similarly, see David Hoffman in WP, Sept. 9, 1997; Paul Quinn-Judge in Time, Dec. 15, 1997; and Carol Williams in LAT, March 25, 1998.

13. Matt Taibbi and Mark Ames, "The Journal's Russia Scandal," The Nation, Oct. 4, 1999, p. 20.

14. Charles Krauthammer and Jim Hoagland in WP, March 19, 1993. For omelettes, see also David Remnick on Charlie Rose, PBS, Oct. 4, 1993. For voices in unison, see A.M. Rosenthal, the editorial and Leslie Gelb in NYT, March 16, 22, 28, April 29, 1993; George Will in WP, March 25, 1993; and editorials in Chicago Tribune, May 9, 1993, and NR, April 12, 1993.

15. See, e.g., Alessandra Stanley in NYT, Jan. 19, 1997; Chicago Tribune editorial, May 9, 1998; and Jim Hoagland in WP, Dec. 16, 1999.

16. Oleg Bogomolov in Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Feb. 8, 1994; and John Morrison cited in Shearer and Starr, p. 39. For exploitation, see Iraida Semenova and Aleksei Podymov in Rossisskaia Gazeta, Jan. 24, 2000.

17. See Steven Erlanger in NYT, April 24, 1993; for more shock therapy, see WP, editorial, March 12, 1997; Michael Gordon in NYT, July 13, 1997; and below, note 32.

18. David Remnick, Resurrection: The Struggle for a New Russia (New York, 1997), p. 362.

19. See, e.g., Steven Erlanger, the editorials and Richard Stevenson in NYT, Aug. 22, 1994, July 16, Sept. 25, 1995, May 24, 1996; Fred Hiatt, Margaret Shapiro, Michael Dobbs and the editorial in WP, April 2, July 30, 1995, March 19, 1997; Carol Williams in LAT, Dec. 2, 1997; Steve Liesman in WSJ, Jan. 28, 1998; and Hiatt in WP, July 12, 1998. For Gore, see Mark Egan, Reuters dispatch, JRL, Oct. 8, 1999.

20. Carroll Bogert in Newsweek, May 31, 1993, p. 12. For more impatience with "doom and gloom," see Steve Liesman in WSJ, Sept. 26, 1996. For the provinces, Leonid Krutakov cited above, note 5.

21. Ann Hulbert in NR, Oct. 2, 1995.

22. Fred Hiatt in WP, March 9, 1998; WSJ quoted in Bivens and Bernstein, p. 631. Similarly, see Richard Stevenson's enthusiasm for the Russian-American investor Boris Jordan in NYT, Sept. 20, 1995, in light of the exposé of Jordan's activities by David Filipov and Matt Taibbi in the Boston Globe, Oct. 22, 1997.

23. Philip Taubman in NYT, June 21, 1998. Similarly, see Steven Erlanger and Michael Specter, ibid., July 23, Oct. 12, 1995; Carol Williams in LAT, Dec. 24, 1997; David Hoffman in WP, Sept. 16, 1999.

24. Timothy O'Brien quoting Nodari Simonia in NYT, Sept. 5, 1999.

25. Michael Dobbs and Paul Blustein in WP, Sept. 12, 1999. Similarly, see Fred Hiatt, ibid., Aug. 29, 1999; John Lloyd in NYT Magazine, Aug. 15, 1999, pp. 34-41, 52, 61, 64.

26. Bill Keller in NYT Book Review, March 19, 2000, pp. 1, 6; Fred Hiatt in WP, March 23, 2000. Similarly, see David Hoffman's defense of Vice President Gore's role in the crusade, ibid., June 4, 2000.

27. David Hoffman, ibid., Sept. 19, 1999; Barry Gewen in NYT Book Review, Oct. 31, 1999, p. 34; WP editorial, June 1, 2000.

28. Human Development Report for Central and Eastern Europe and the CIS 1999 (New York, 1999), p. 15; Paul Quinn-Judge in Time, July 3, 2000, p. 41.

29. Tatyana Tolstaya in The New York Review of Books, Nov. 19, 1998, p. 6; Robert Kaiser, Charlie Rose, PBS, Sept. 10, 1999; Rose Brady in BW, March 13, 2000, p. 14E12.

30. Michael Sesit in WSJ Europe, July 7-8, 2000. Similarly, see Reuters dispatch, JRL, Feb. 19, 1999; Michael Wines in NYT, June 2, 2000; and James Cox in USA Today, July 21, 2000.

31. Michael Wines in NYT, May 8, Feb. 20, July 9, 2000. For other pro-Putin pieces, see John Lloyd in NYT Magazine, March 19, 2000, pp. 62, 64-67; and David Hoffman's minimizing of Putin's role in the Chechen war, in WP, March 20, 2000.

32. Michael Wines in NYT, June 29, 2000. For similar enthusiasm, see David Hoffman in WP, July 7, 2000; Paul Hofheinz (who calls it an "excellent program") in WSJ Europe, July 5, 2000; and the NYT editorial on the flat tax, May 28, 2000.

33. WP editorial, July 22, 2000; Paul Hofheinz in WSJ Europe, July 5, 2000. Similarly, see David Ignatius in WP, July 23, 2000. For whitewashing the "much maligned" Boris Berezovsky, widely considered the most rapacious oligarch, see Michael Wines in NYT, July 15, 2000; and the way Berezovsky is presented, or allowed to present himself, by David Hoffman in WP, July 18 and 20, 2000; and Paul Quinn-Judge in Time Europe, July 17, 2000. For the survey, see Vedomosti, Aug. 3, 2000.

34. Maura Reynolds in LAT, March 24, 2000. Similarly, see Michael Wines in NYT, Feb. 20, 2000; and David Hoffman in WP, March 25, 2000.

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