In society

"ME" and "RE"

January 31, 2013 Vladimir Nadein

Vladimir Pozner, the most famous television commentator of Russia, apologized for his recent reservation when he called the State Duma a state fool.

Pozner is good, he is a master of oral speech. And to me, writing like a pen, these last two words-how to write? With a lowercase letter or with a capital?

After all, a terrible political mine is buried here. If Posner actually accidentally rescued, then you need to write everything - with a small one. If he kept in his mind a certain intent, some kind of informational intrigue, then certainly-with a large one. So: the state fool. Such is the command of the Russian language - in my opinion, the most invaluable of all the heredits that we got from the ancestors.

Actually, because of this, the entire fuss has flared up. Most viewers rejected the opinion that the trained language of the television committee was inadvertently slipped. Yes, and the Duma itself, in the full almost composition, did not admit that the mocking consonant just like that, from the bay-bary, on TV, for the entire white light, was exchanged for the consonant growling.

The audience decided that it was not orthoepy that played a role here, but logic. The common truth required capital letters. Today, the common truth, that is, the judgment is obvious, publicly and not in need of special evidence, is the opinion of the State Duma. Millions of fellow citizens are convinced that this collection of dubious personalities who call themselves the parliament of Russia is an institution not only illegal (illegitimate), not only immoral, but also frankly stupid. That is, it is a fool. And since its influence applies to the entire vast state, it is quite reasonable to call it - state.

And here it begins for the observer for a fork. Vladimir Pozner does not belong to the honor of the discovery. He simply announced on television what they talk about without him from Smolensk to Chukotka. By world standards, there is no special professional heroism. For that, in fact, the people pay their journalists money and attention.

Alas, in our special conditions, even for the announcement of banalities, you need to be, at least, Pozner. According to the length of service, he has been given mass respects and respect, as is now called in Rus' the highest degree of public reverence.

Well, if Posner just made a reservation, then all civilian valves are simply inappropriate. “Firewood in the yard, on the grass of firewood” - they do not hang for such medals.

With your permission, I will leave aside the behavior of the Duma gentlemen. To start the adoption of federal law, in three readings, with expert conclusions, electronic voting, signature and seal of the president, publication in a closed printing house - and all for the sake of Swara with one journalist! But who, after all this, gives such a quarrel office a noble “M”? No, “p” and only “p”.

But the double apology of V. Pozner needs an inconsistent understanding. At first glance, the moral regression of the commentator affected here. A person is smart and experienced, he without other people's hints for certain leads what the gestation of the collective mind of the State Duma is now. But if Pozner’s first apology, in hot pursuit, sounded with an intriguing craft, then the second was a familiar, prudent political drama, from which domestic journalism did not heal at all from the early Soviet times.

Cushing and Sliding is the national feature of our journalism. She was and remains antediluvian - not so much by ideas as by methods of her work. On the territory of Russia, world rules of finding and disclosure of information do not apply. Only concepts dependent on the desires of the plowman.

The impunity of lies increases as it approaches power. The tone is set by Vladimir Putin, and it is not surprising that he has a darkness of followers. This is just the case when what is allowed to Jupiter is picked up and increased on all ready -made bulls. Russian Corrida is when unprincipled bulls for licenses written out by the authorities are recklessly put on the horns of the Thoreadors.

From all our television celebrities, Vladimir Pozner, perhaps the only one who is aware of what he does and why he does it, and not otherwise. Before his eyes, he always has an example of Walter Kronkait. Neither English, which both speak perfectly, neither attitude, nor profession, nor talent share V. Pozner and W. Kronkait. They listened to countries that are not very similar to each other, but this is also little socialist. They are not divided around even the audience, with all the difference in their stories and traditions.

They are separated by power. W. Kronkait respected his state power, but was not afraid of it. V. Pozner does not respect, but - is afraid.

Many people know who Walter Kronkait was, but very few understand how amazing he personified the phenomenon.

Each of you is at hand, and nothing prevents you from refreshing the life of this amazing journalist in your memory, who will forever remain the standard of profession. For 17 years in a row, W. Kronkait met in the evenings with millions of Americans, completing his news reviews by the famous saying: “Such things” ( that ' s The Way it IS ).

What Walter Kronkait did not tell his viewers about. The war in Vietnam, the death of President Kennedy, millions of marches under the leadership of Martin Luther King, landing on the moon, Watergate scandal ... But this did not make it unusual. From year to year, polls of public opinion showed that people in the country do not believe so simply and sincerely as this elderly, slightly old -fashioned journalist who does not resemble a television star.

I don’t even know his main title how to translate into Russian. The Most Trusted Man in America . “A person who is most believed in America” - so what? But this is the most important thing: this journalist was sometimes mistaken, but he never lied.

There is no television that would not need such a person. That there is television - there is no such country.

What did you do today, dear reader? They treated children, drove metro trains, fined impudent drivers for traveling into the oncoming lane? You are tired anyway. In front of you, forty -nickel children with stupid mothers passed in front of you, seven thousand stops flashed and sprinkled seven thousand times on the head: “Caution, the doors are closed.” One and a half dozen drivers tempted you with a rustling demon: "Well, commander, well, let's talk."

But here you are at home, and the TV shines in the corner. And why only from there is not rushing. Medvedev somewhere there, behind the hill, said about our courts that they are already good for everyone and even better not yet. And in the Duma, meanwhile, they prepare the law to pay a new housing tax. And the news is that we no longer need the fighting “mistles” from the French, we’ll swim on our own, where we want. We would, it turns out, would not have looked at this at point blank, but Serdyukov had been counted.

What is true, and what - signs? Is the court himself really pulled himself by the hair from the flushing of brown bribe? And this tax on my cooperative - is it really so that a native country flourishes? And also about Serdyukov - where did he come from, such a shelter, came to our glorious Ministry of Defense?

Everyone says different things, everyone argues between themselves, but here is a man who, at night in his head, buzzes “carefully, the doors are closed” - who should he believe? Does Russia have such a person who, at the appointed hour, will simply explain in advance what things are now? But little that will explain. He, most importantly, is never lying. Imagine - never! Neither before the authorities, nor before God, nor in front of the last viewer with an elderly black and white box on the floor.

There is no such person in Russia, and this is a big trouble. Everyone was sophisticated, and if anyone is honest, then not simply, not for a clear advantage, but by glasses. Vladimir Pozner looks against this background, perhaps more sympathetic than others, but after all-who? M. Leontyev, V. Solovyov, D. Kiselev, A. Mamontov, M. Shevchenko, A. Pushkov, A. Mitrofanov ... Do not tell me which of them to nominate on the Most Trusted Man All Rus'?

It’s time to admit with bitterness that a reservation like “state fool” is no dawn of freedom. These are all the same Zhmurki with hopeless censorship. Replacing the mocking consonant with the growling not so much the prank of the master as the evidence of journalistic powerlessness. The television longevity of the commentator Walter Kronkait came from his unchanging, continuous, many years and an hourly moral directness. The impressive experience of Vladimir Pozner is the result of its enviable flexibility and unchanging, continuous maneuvering.

These two high -class professionals had completely different survival conditions. Natural selection pulled two very similar pots from the same clay, but for different contents.

When Walter Kronkait, having visited Vietnam, abandoned his former position and sharply opposed the war, other advisers encouraged President Lyndon Johnson to immediately repulse the impudent. The owner of the White House staggered back in horror: “Do you want to quarrel me with Kronkait?!”

Perhaps Lindon Johnson would not be so shy, if he, like Vladimir Putin, was not a obstinate congress, but such a wonderful state Duma.

Or is it a fool?

Photo by ITAR-TASS/ Anton Butsenko