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Wednesday, March 17, 2021

The Sovietization of the American Press

I collect Soviet newspapers. Years ago, I used to travel to Moscow’s Izmailovsky flea market every few weeks, hooking up with a dealer who crisscrossed the country digging up front pages from the Cold War era. I have Izvestia’s celebration of Gagarin’s flight, a Pravda account of a 1938 show trial, even an ancient copy of Ogonyek with Trotsky on the cover that someone must have taken a risk to keep. 

These relics, with dramatic block fonts and red highlights, are cool pieces of history. Not so cool: the writing! Soviet newspapers were wrought with such anvil shamelessness that it’s difficult to imagine anyone ever read them without laughing. A good Soviet could write almost any Pravda headline in advance. What else but “A Mighty Demonstration of the Union of the Party and the People” fit the day after Supreme Soviet elections? What news could come from the Spanish civil war but “Success of the Republican Fleet?” Who could earn an obit headline but a “Faithful Son of the Party”?
-WiscoDave

1 comment:

  1. from the article, quoting MSM headlines:

    — Biden stimulus showers money on Americans, sharply cutting poverty
    — Champion of the middle class comes to the aid of the poor

    Right, like $1400.00 is gonna pay someone's mortgage or rent who hasn't been ALLOWED to work in months. The only thing Joe Biden has done to aid anyone in his 47 years or sucking on the taxpayer's tit, is enrich himself and his family.

    At least Matt Taibbi, unlike his dad Mike, the lefty loon from Bean Town now working at CBS, is willing to at least make fun of the MSM. 'Course he's really not risking much, since he's a "self employed journalist" (I use the term "journalist" extremely loosely here, as there are very few REAL "journalists" left in the entire country and maybe the world).

    Nemo

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