The servile Kremlin pool
Grigory Pasko, journalist
The obsequiousness with which the journalists who are in proximity to the first persons - those who are part of the so-called Kremlin pool - write down everything the first persons say just melts my heart. Just take a look at this spectacle. Sycophantic toadies would weep with envy. Slaves would wipe away tears of joy. To write down all the drivel that these same first persons spew out more often than not with such speed and with such rapture is something only very faithful and devoted journalists could do. But then... Are they really journalists?...
Fine, that's not the point. Let us pause instead to think about why it is that they write, and don't just flick on their recording devices? There's an incredible array of sound-recording equipment out there nowadays - and of the highest quality and convenience of use, at that. (Just the other day I read about the latest miracle from Zelenograd - the smallest voice recorder in the world , smaller than an ordinary cigarette lighter). You say you've got no money to buy one? I don't believe you for a moment. No, the matter here, in my view, is in something else. If a journalist is holding a recording device in his hand, this then frees up his gaze, and he can then look directly into the eyes of the first person. But the first persons don't like direct looks. They're afraid of them. What if a direct look is followed by a direct question? (I'm fantasizing here, of course: since when do the pool reporters know how to come up with a direct question?)
Moving on. If you're using a recording device, you've got at least one of your hands free. But the first persons are afraid of free hands. What if something other than a pen is in them?
I think that the pool journalists are even selected in such a manner so that they themselves would want their hands to be busy, so that they would be deprived of the opportunity to look directly in the eyes, to ponder questions, to see as far as possible and to hear as much as possible as well as possible ... With notepad in hand, it is as if though they are fenced off from everything external: like, here we are, the faithful and devoted, scribbling away, just like we're supposed to, not sticking out, not asking needless questions, only rarely catching every word.
Photo: Not for attribution. Curiously, Kremlin pool reporters use hundred-year-old technology in their work.
