By Alexey Kovalev
Congratulations,
US media! You’ve just covered your first press conference of an
authoritarian leader with a massive ego and a deep disdain for your
trade and everything you hold dear. We in Russia have been doing it for
12 years now — with a short hiatus when our leader wasn’t technically
our leader — so quite a few things during Donald Trump’s press
conference rang my bells. Not just mine, in fact — read this excellent round-up in The Moscow Times.
Vladimir
Putin’s annual pressers are supposed to be the media event of the year.
They are normally held in late December, around Western Christmas time
(we Orthodox Christians celebrate Christmas two weeks later and it’s not
a big deal, unlike New Year’s Eve). Which probably explains why Putin’s
pressers don’t get much coverage outside of Russia, except in a
relatively narrow niche of Russia-watchers. Putin’s pressers are
televised live across all Russian TV channels, attended by all kinds of
media — federal news agencies, small local publications and foreign
reporters based in Moscow — and are supposed to overshadow every other
event in Russia or abroad.
Vladimir Putin’s annual news conference, Dec 23, 2016 / kremlin.ru
My
name is Alexey Kovalev, I’m a Russian journalist and I’m writing about
propaganda, fake news and Russian state media on noodleremover.news.
It’s all in Russian, but here’s an example of what I’m doing in English. You can contact me at kovalever@gmail.com. I tweet as @Alexey__Kovalev.
