Stupidity of Some Mainstream Media Coverage Has Me Defending Russians… Again!

• Stupidity of Some Mainstream Media Coverage Has Me Defending Russians… Again!
  by https://www.rt.com/
  I often find myself writing in defense of Russia and Russians, then vowing to keep away from the subject for a while. It never lasts, because some coverage is so idiotic, I can’t help but start angrily bashing away at my keyboard.
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  I’ve noticed how the media’s framing of Russia affects the way it’s viewed for some years, although obviously it’s more pronounced now post-Skripal. I personally have no desire to defend anything governments do or say to each other, but there is a fallout which colors how people and cultures are seen, and that’s what really annoys me. Russians are not all spies, oligarchs or any of the other cliches. 
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  Shortly after I moved to Moscow in 2006 I came home for Christmas, a bag packed with decoratively-wrapped bottles of vodka and matryoshka dolls, fresh from the duty free to hand out as presents.
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  My grandad, curious about my life over in Russia asked me: “So, what do you do when you’re not working, they don’t have restaurants and bars like us do they?” I explained to him that there were plenty of places you could go if you really looked: one chain called Starbucks was very popular, and so was another one called Burger King. I also reassured him that I had also managed to find one or two local bars too. I’m not sure he believed me.
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  Let’s be fair to him, he was retired by the time the Soviet Union ceased to be, living through the Cold War left him unable to accept that you could get a pint of Heineken or London Pride whenever you fancied one in Russia.
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  I told him there was even a Marks & Spencer or two and he laughed and called me a comedian. I’ve been back in London a couple of years, and this week I told my mother that I was planning a trip to Moscow in the New Year, and she told me she didn’t want to know because she was worried because of “all the poisoning that has been going on.”
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  I tried to reassure her that the poisoning was in fact in Salisbury, and I promised I would definitely not to go there however nice the cathedral is. My mother’s views were even more confusing to me, because she has been to Russia a number of times and had a lovely time, yet still she has a view that is in direct contradiction to her experience.
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  The reason I bring this up, is because there have been a series of stories about Russia over the last week or so that in my eyes defy belief as to their stupidity, but stupidity doesn’t seem to be an impediment to getting stories into the mainstream media. I realized against that background I should not be surprised that on a human level there is so much misunderstanding.
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  The most bizarre recent story is one suggesting that the Russian-made cartoon series Masha and the Bear are in some way being used by Moscow as a deliberate tool of soft power, that the Masha of the title is actually some secret Vladimir Putin avatar. It’s an interesting divergence from the usual narrative of Russia as an ultra-Conservative powerhouse. It’s either a champion of conservatism, or its transforming the spirit of Putin into a little girl to sway the West, it can’t be both can it?
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