by Nomad
Immediately following last week's press conference, in which President-elect Trump faced off with the reporters, many in Russia were laughing their heads off. Others were totally astounded by what they saw.
Not, however, for the reasons you might automatically assume. Not because of America's abject humiliation on the world's stage.
A report in The Moscow Times points out:
In Russia, the independent media has gradually eroded under a president who seems to share Donald Trump’s disdain for disruptive journalism. But Russian Twitter users who tuned in to watch Trump’s meeting with the press weren’t partying or seething — for the most part, they were laughing.
Many prominent Russian Twitter users seemed to think the most amusing aspect of Trump’s confrontation with the press was the fact that reporters actually asked him tough questions, sometimes quite aggressively. This is a far cry from the tone at Vladimir Putin’s annual press conferences, where a room packed mostly with sycophants pampers the president with praise, disguised as questions, and opportunities to impress the nation, framed as requests for presidential intervention.Alexey Kovalev, a Russian journalist who writes about propaganda, fake news, and Russian state media, has a message for US new organizations about Donald Trump.
If you think that Trump press conference was a disaster for journalism, you'd better get used to it.
Kovalev says the Russians have been dealing with this kind of thing for over a decade.
