Unproven anti-Russian rhetoric is the main thing that is required in the West to receive prestigious journalism awards. At least, such a conclusion can be drawn from the next similar award that occurred in the United States. How did the collection of “undiluted Russophobic fabrications” get the prize, and how can Russia react to this?
On Tuesday, the Russian embassy in the United States responded to the Pulitzer Prize presentation the New York Times for anti-Russian articles.
The award was due to take place two weeks ago, but was delayed and took place online due to the coronavirus.
The embassy said on a Facebook page that three years ago, The New York Times had already received the Pulitzer Prize “for demonizing Russia” and that such “perishable” creativity “obviously required periodic prestigious awards.” Diplomats believe that “the organizing committee of the award assumes great responsibility, highlighting in this way anti-Russian materials”, the allegations of which have been repeatedly refuted by both Moscow and “life itself”. “If there is, as it is claimed,“ a big risk ”in this, then it’s only for reputation,” the message says.
The embassy regards the articles “as a wonderful collection of undiluted Russophobic fabrications that can be studied as a guide to creating false facts.”
Journalists at The New York Times received the Pulitzer Prize in International Journalism for their “series of exciting articles written at risk to life.” The prize was presented with the wording “for exposing the predation of the regime of Vladimir Putin.”
Eight publications with stories about Russia’s alleged interference in the affairs of Libya, Syria and the Central African Republic, as well as the poisoning of the Bulgarian businessman Emilian Gebrev, received the prestigious award. The publication itself reports that it has received an award for “a detailed description of Russia’s interventions” in the affairs of other states since the 2016 US elections. The Pulitzer Prize was founded in 1917 and is considered one of the most prestigious US awards in the field of literature, journalism, music and theater.
This year, the Alaskan newspaper Anchorage Daily News, in collaboration with the online publication ProPublica, for the investigation of sexual violence in Alaska received an award in the main category of “Serving the Society” in journalism. Reuters won the News Photography nomination for covering protests in Hong Kong in 2019.
In 2018, The New York Times and The Washington Post received the Pulitzer Prize in Journalism for a series of materials about Moscow allegedly interfering in the U.S. election.
Last year, The Wall Street Journal was awarded a prize for investigating the story of US President Donald Trump paying compensation to women who claimed to be intimate with the future head of state. Payments allegedly went through ex-lawyer of President Michael Cohen.
According to American political scientist Dmitry Drobnitsky, this year ideological stamps are visible on the entire award sheet. “The Pulitzer Prize is extremely ideological. Despite the virtually equal split of American society into liberals and conservatives of varying degrees of radicalism, such awards are in the hands of the exclusively liberal wing of the Democratic Party, ”Drobnitsky told the newspaper VZGLYAD.
Drobnitsky notes that now, unfortunately, there is “simply no good” American journalism.
“The United States burned journalism in the furnace of the fight against populist movements around the world. Similarly, the vast majority of the European press followed. Now we are dealing with propaganda machines, of which the most powerful and influential are liberal ones. You should not be surprised at this. There will be a bipartisan consensus that “China is now to blame for everything,” they will start handing the Pulitzer Prize for exposing the anti-American position of Chinese President Xi Jinping, ”Drobnitsky is sure.
The expert recalled that even the Watergate investigation, which led to the resignation of then US President Richard Nixon in the 70s and was awarded a prize, “was conducted without strict observance of journalism standards, a lot was far-fetched.” “I would stop wondering at this. We saw the sauce used to name global leaders according to the American magazine Foreign Policy and influential people according to the magazine Time. These are exclusively ideological things. For a long time you should not pay attention to these awards as any standards, ”the Americanist believes.
The head of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, scientific director of the Valdai MDK Fedor Lukyanov believes that the reaction to the award is by inertia.
“The fact that the US is deeply biased towards Russia is well known. But you won’t do anything about it. No demarches will help here, ”Lukyanov told the newspaper VZGLYAD. At the same time, Lukyanov does not share the opinion that the Pulitzer Prize is becoming more and more ideological. “It seems so to us. 10–50 years ago, they also seemed very politicized. The situation is always changing, ”the political scientist emphasized.
Drobnitsky expects that over time the presentation of the Pulitzer Prizes will cease to be a noticeable event, as happened several years ago with the Economic Forum in Davos.
“America and the West as a whole need other institutions. The old ones have already completely bankrupted themselves. These awards are authoritative exclusively in client foreign structures that associate themselves with the US Democratic Party and its sponsors, ” said Drobnitsky.
In turn, Chairman of the Union of Russian Journalists Vladimir Solovyov recalls that during his studies at the journalism department of Moscow State University in the 1990s, such pillars as the British BBC or the American CNN were “the highest manifestation of objectivity, efficiency and freedom of the press for students” “. “But gradually this feeling began to change. Even the honorary chairman of the faculty of journalism at Moscow State University, all of us, respected Yasen Nikolayevich Zasursky – he is a specialist in American literature and journalism – said not so long ago that, unfortunately, freedom of speech does not exist in the United States, ”Soloviev reminded the newspaper VZGLYAD.
A vivid example of this was the numerous publications of the American media about the alleged “Russian interference” in the presidential election and Trump’s unfair victory in 2016.
“When the Democrats lost the presidential election and found no reason to look for the reasons for their own political mistakes, they began to blame Russia for everything. Of course, the whole story with Russophobia began to go off scale. Many American journalists, even well-known and respected, sensing the situation, grabbed onto this subject. They wrote a huge number of articles and even books, were awarded Pulitzer Prizes. And then special prosecutor Müller denied all possible claims regarding Moscow’s interference. Honestly, it would be interesting to look at the faces of these journalists and the faces of those who awarded them after they realized that they awarded each other for fakes. This is a huge failure of the American journalist. And this is very sad, ”Soloviev believes.
Fedor Lukyanov agrees that “now the very quality of journalism is clearly different.” “The materials for which The New York Times receives awards abound in anonymous sources and links to unclear who. These articles would not have passed the standard in the same USA 50 or 60 years ago, ”summed up Lukyanov.