vlad.tribnet.com / Issue #161 / Social life / Reading article...

I was feeling stranded last week.

While Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky received reams of copy back home, I was cut off from foreign papers. Here was the United States in an abyss of shame and disgrace, and I couldn’t even find some washed-up American lawyer to give me the lowdown. So I plopped in front of CNN, expecting full news junkie satisfaction.

But what I got was distinctly unsatisfying. Lawyers and pundits debated for entire talk shows whether Clinton had left phone messages with a White House intern. Analysts discussed the ramifications of independent counselors and gag orders, and scrutinized the most insignificant slips of the tongue.

Worst of all, the participants were straight-faced. How could White House correspondents keep from laughing as they reported on Clinton’s rumored gifts, or his penchant for women with high-cut skirts? The self-importance of it all was enough to make a viewer gag.

Enter the cavalry, in the shape of Russian newspapers. Thanks to Bill Clinton’s high jinks, mine eyes have seen the light, and it shines most from the printing presses of Russia. The New York Times, that venerable gazette, tried to play a balancing act with its coverage. The game in the Big Apple is to dig up heaps of dirt, then hope it sounds newsworthy.

Vladivostok media, however, had no such scruples. Unfounded accusations and sheer speculation made headlines, because writers understood that some possibilities had to be raised in the press — even if they weren’t true at all.

The Russian papers knew their readers wanted intrigue, and dispensed with lofty goals like civic journalism and media responsibility. “Zippergate” was plastered all over the front pages, along with doctored photographs of Clinton and Lewinsky in ridiculous poses.

And that’s what I appreciated most about the news here. At least Russians made no pretense of veracity. Their coverage mocked not only Clinton and his intern, but American news outlets as well. The joke was on the New York Times and its competitors, who gorged themselves on the unending news feed and kept a straight face in the process.

But most of all, the joke was on us. Anybody capable of sitting through so much dreary, self-important muck needs a kick in the pants – preferably from the Russian press.