The cuckoo praises the rooster

A group of 33 political scientists issued an open letter in support of the editor-in-chief of the Moscow News weekly Vitaly Tretyakov. Among those who signed the letter are Gleb Pavlovsky, Vyacheslav Nikonov, Maxim Shevchenko, Mikhail Leontyev, Sergey Markov and others. The reason for the letter was information about Tretyakov’s imminent dismissal from the post of editor-in-chief of Moscow News, which appeared in Kommersant on November 26. “From our point of view, Mr. Tretyakov failed to cope with the task,” Dmitry Solopov, creative director of the United Media company, told the publication. “He greatly increased the costs of the newspaper, but, in fact, did nothing to revive it. Neither financial or auditory results never appeared.” Leontyev, Pavlovsky, Nikonov and others categorically disagree with Solopov’s statement: “We consider it necessary to state that it is impossible to imagine anything more ridiculous. Most of us have been constantly collaborating with Vitaly Tretyakov at least since 1990, from the date of publication of the first issue of the created named after Nezavisimaya Gazeta, which has become an outstanding project of domestic journalism and political science, which continues, which in this case is especially important, to this day,” political scientists write. Collective letters have been fashionable lately, but in this case there are several surprising points. It seems that this letter became a manifestation of journalistic brotherhood and professional solidarity, but, firstly, such manifestations “without a whistle” are very rare in our country, and then the reason itself is interesting: not even dismissal, but just dissatisfaction with work - and such an effect. How many journalists and “political scientists” (especially over the last eight years) have been fired, condemned, slandered for ideological reasons, and no letters in defense...