Sometime, google “Pravda”. The name means “truth” in Russian. Pravda is their news agency. It is so appallingly crude that it helps us to understand that our own “news” sources, while more sophisticated, provide a lot of mindless drivel for us to “think” about.
Since Pravda is a government monopoly, it has no meaningful competition when it comes to telling people what to think about issues. Whatever the Putin Government says is news is the only information available on which feelings about Enemies & Problems are to be based.
The other component of news, Distractions, is much the same, though far more simple-minded, than ours. Pravda chronicles creatures from outer space, inner space, and the ocean depths, all vying for attention. Endless stories of the “women enjoy having sex in the bathroom” variety pass for news.
Today, for instance, “truth” was concerned with four-legged chickens and a remarkably overweight Russian woman who’d found success as a sumo wrestler. A mouse was found in a bag of potato chips, and coffee was discovered to cure baldness. The deep thoughts of American actresses and starlets were recorded as if meaningful.
It is as if the entire Soviet nation is reduced to the crudest version of a supermarket tabloid as a source of news.
While other countries appear to have more sophisticated sources and concerns, we really don’t. “News” continues to be what we are to be told and how we are to be distracted.
