Pussy Riot

Flip on the television. Go to your local NBC news channel, and observe the news anchor. Notice how excited they are, how they seem to care about what they are reporting on. Now read an article on NBC’s website, notice the difference? It is plain style journalism at its finest, and its most boring. The punk rock band Pussy Riot were recently sentenced and sent off to prison to serve a two year sentence. Their crime was performing an anti-Putin song in the Russian Orthodox Cathedral.  The article “Pussy Riot members sent to far-flung prisons, lawyer says,” lacks all of the flare of sensational journalism, but does it also lack its agenda? Could it be that this article exists to reaffirm the American ideal of free speech? Is it condemning the Russian government for trying to muffle our ideal with a black cloth saturated in chloroform? 

Plain style is much more suave than the Official Style, subtle as it conveys its point through construction instead of word choice. The last portion of the article is a statement from one of the members of the band, Pussy Riot. It states: “I don’t like the fact that they did not acquit me and the other girls … and I want to challenge that before the European court. Sadly, the Russian courts have not shown objectivity or fairness.” It is ironic that a crucial last statement is on the subject of objectivity and fairness when this quotation was most likely chosen by editors and carefully placed in its current spot for the greatest effect. But what gives them the right to judge something that is not their own?

The author’s stance is evident in the sentence: “Two members of the Russian punk group Pussy Riot convicted of protesting against President Vladimir Putin in a cathedral.” NBC clearly sides with the band, believing they were solely protesting Putin, while the Kremlin believes that it was sparked by religious hatred, seen in the charges of “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred.”  The states side is only represented in the previous passage and one that shows Putin’s support of the sentence of two years to “protect the feelings of the faithful.” Other than these two admissions of their being another side to this story, the article is all Pussy Riot and possible cruelties of the Russian judicial process.

I would bet that Americans reading this feel much different from the Russians that experienced it. They could have very well been appalled by Pussy Riots antics at one of the Cathedrals, maybe finding it tasteless. Others could possibly have felt the intended effect, disgust with the Putin run government. The band was being disruptive and I do not know many people who like disturbances. A loud punk band shouting an anti-Putin song in a Cathedral probably sits just as well with the general Russian public as the Westboro Baptist Church members picketing a soldier's funeral sits with Americans attending the funeral. However, I digress, I was not in Russia, so these are merely guesses. But, this article does make the American high horse grow even taller as the authors condemn the way the Russian government does things regarding an ideal that is not their own. Should a country be held to other’s standards? American journalists have yet again thrown themselves into others’ contexts and tried to apply their own.

 This style appears just as sterile as the Official Style, its polar opposite. It leaves little room for an authorial voice, most likely because it has to reach a large audience, and thus must be easily understood. Maybe this sterility, this lack of a voice helps to sell what is being said as the Truth. It is easy to see that someone reading an article with no artistic flare, no power words that give off the scent of bias, could think, “well they are just reporting the facts,” and accept it as Truth. The following passage exemplifies this: “The women's lawyers said they had tried to argue they should be allowed to remain in jail in Moscow, saying it would have permitted them to be closer to their small children. They had also cited health and safety concerns at far-flung penal colonies.” It is strictly a summation of a conversation, just the facts, only what was said and no spice. But, and it is a large one, it is also only what was said on one side of the fence. We are raised with another idea and that is that each story has two sides. This piece of journalism, as we all should have known (and they would have gotten away with it if it weren’t for you pesky kids), speaks for the one side, the anti-Putin side, only. The way plain style is used in this article reminds me of hypnotic suggestion or subliminal messages. Watch the clock swing back and forth, the plain style, and listen attentively as the journalists whisper, “the Russian government is wrong,” in your ear.

--Chad Nickerson