I am of two minds about this next story. One point is that is shows that Russia is very close to a police state again, with little real freedom of speech and the press. The other reaction is sort of a wistful yearning to be able to treat the media the same way in thhis country.
Again, one of my pet peeves is the way the media is this country uses anonymous sources to put out rumor and gossip, and the way our media is the PRIMARY agent for the "politics of personal destruction" in this country.
In Russia, a newspaper printed that Prime Minister, and former President, Vladimir Putin had secretly divorced his wife, and was marryig a 24 year old girl. One of my problmes is that I heard this on the Paul Harvey radio report, and still am not sure whether the Russian newspaper story was TRUE (even though the implicatioin was that it was, and you would think it is the kind of story a Russian newspaper would not print unless true). Nevertheless, what does seem to be a fact is that the NEWSPAPER was promptly shuyt down (as distinguished from, in this country, someone like Putin having to explain himself endlessly).
Yep. Freedom does have its downside. We, the public, could mitigate the downside by paying less attention to the rumor, gossip, and overhyped personal attacks put out by our media.
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