Posted on 03/31/2002 9:42:10 AM PST by Boyd
Of the dozen or so journalists and media personalities that have severely tested the limits of freedom of speech in Russia and indeed the Western world in the last decade, the name of Matt Taibbi, co-editor of Moscow's alternative the eXile newspaper will stand out. "Anti-Semitic," "fascist," "terrorist": these are the kinds of terms used to describe Taibbi by many journalists who have borne the brunt of his criticism in Russia and the United States. He has been physically threatened, sued and, I am told, even beaten up for his unrelenting abuse of what he perceived as the hypocrisy and double standards in the way Russia has been covered by the Western media. With malice toward no one in particular and everyone in general, Taibbi's witty tongue didn't spare anybody who is somebody in the Moscow media market.
Taibbi shot to fame in the mid-?90s with his lewd and outrageous tabloid, full of expletives, sexual and drug exploits that are ever present but seldom written about. For the foreign press corps, whose mission in Russia was to propagate back home the Western stereotype of a bad, cold country of evil people ' Taibbi was a totally unnecessary irritant. Giving up his job as a Moscow Times reporter, Taibbi gave vent to all his anger and frustration, turning his truly amazing writing skills into laser-guided missiles aimed at the American and British journalists.
The language, the aggressive, downright abusive attacks on personalities, physical attributes or private lives of people picked seemingly at random were stomach-churning. The Moscow expat community was in frightened awe of Taibbi and the eXile co-editor Mark Ames. The duo picked out Americans in general, an Indian journalist named Vijay Maheshwari, their former employer Derk Sauer and his brainchild, the Moscow Times, emptying their ammunition on one target after another. The language used was crass and limitless, while the tactics were verbal violence of proportions never before seen in the U.S. press or elsewhere. And the readers loved it.
Not only did Taibbi break through the extreme insincerity behind the genial facade in Western media coverage of Russia, he rebelled against the complacency in society and intellectual mediocrity being worshipped by news networks. Taibbi labeled himself a loser and, with his disarming, self-deprecating humor, he left little recourse for his targets.
For the first year or two, the eXile, printed biweekly in wide strokes of red and black paint, essentially lived off its anger at and then satire of the Moscow Times. The range of targets later expanded to include nearly all the Western reporters in Moscow.
Then Taibbi's writing spread to Russophiles through a mild gentlemanly Quaker in Washington, D.C. named David Johnson. Johnson is everything Taibbi is not ' a saintly, pacifist son of deeply religious parents that served as missionaries in India. Johnson is a Russophile with a cause and determination. His postings of Taibbi's articles and press reviews reached out to 3,000-4,000 experts and academics ? many of whose egos and vanities Taibbi was going after. Johnson resisted all peer pressure for two years and published Taibbi in his list, finally succumbing to it and dropping him when Taibbi threw a pie in the face of Michael Wines, the Moscow bureau chief of the New York Times ' labeling him the worst foreign journalist in Russia.
Months later, Taibbi resurfaced on Johnson's List ' Western reporting about Russia seemed incomplete without Taibbi in those moths.
When the media business brought me face to face with hundreds of journalists and Russia experts, I suddenly began to appreciate Taibbi more. Taibbi displayed an honesty most of them did not, he took risks for his writing and his opinions. The more I was exposed to the naked egos and pretentiousness among the self-appointed defenders of freedom of speech, the Western press corps, the more I respected the child in Taibbi.
The eXile, I am told, will live on and change with the times after Taibbi leaves for Buffalo, NY, to take over an alternative newspaper there. However, as much I might have at times hated both his writings and his eXile, I can't help but wish both well. He is getting out alive from Moscow, and there are only a couple of pending lawsuits. Buffalo, NY, I am afraid, won't be as tolerant and kind to him as the freedom-loving Russia has been. Taibbi too, I am sure, will look back and be grateful to this city and this country.
By AJAY GOYAL / The Russia Journal
Or, he could run the paper from prison. They'd have to change the name to iNternal eXile.
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