Igor Vittel, RBC newspaper: ‘People who earlier would not even allowed to clean the toilets now think that they are outstanding bloggers’

The Internet is in every insane asylum

'Recently, I nipped into the toilet in GUM (the State Department Store in Moscow – the editor's note). There was a cashier, she asked me: 'Mr Vittel, do you remember me?' I replied no, I did not. 'I was on air in your TV program, and now I am here…' That is why I tell: 'Guys, being in my program you should remember where it may end.' From that story the online conference with a journalist of RBC newsaper Igor Vittel started.

Almost the main topic of the discussion with the federal journalist was the state propaganda. Vittel noted that many people that are far from media have an impression that 'from the very morning the sets of the president are put into their brains'.

'Actually, propaganda it is not when you are transmitted what to say and not to say from the Kremlin wall. It is when you start to transmit your own opinions misrepresenting it as the ultimate truth. Or, if you are a pro-government journalist, start believing in what you do not believe outside the frame,' Vittel noted.

Propaganda it is not when you are transmitted what to say and not to say from the Kremlin wall. It is when you start to transmit your own opinions misrepresenting it as the ultimate truth

Now in Russia and in the world we can see the general decline in journalism. It is influenced by not only ideologization but also a low quality of education and the decline in general level of intellect. The responsibility lies generally on the social networks and the Internet, says Vittel:

'People who earlier would not even allowed to clean the toilets now they think that they are outstanding bloggers, they attract certain audience, namely due to propaganda, transmitting open ideas.

<...> With the appearance of the Internet there appeared people who should not be allowed to anything. But no, they have a mania, they write some crab and they think that they express their opinion. Just madness.

The professional journalism with the appearance of the Internet has not raised the level but has fallen to the level of the bloggers. <…> When I come to the students, I see how their eyes shine but when they start speaking – it's just awful. It would be better if they read books,' complained Vittel.

'It is terrible <…> Russian as well as Western journalism is competing not for the title of the most professional but for the decline in professional standards. Today I do not know what is worse – Rossiya channel or BBC,' said Vittel.

Ruminant analytics

In addition to the decline in the general level of journalism, there is also the decline in the level of analytics, believes the guest of Realnoe Vremya. According to Vittel, true analytics is replaced by 'a chewing gum'. What is more, such situation is not only in Russia but in the whole world.

All the television analytics just show up in the public eye and thus earn the media capital, believes Vittel. Even those who come to his program. True analytics 'sit in their underground' and few people know them.

'The serious analytics can't speak their thoughts coherently. But the television needs the other thing. It needs Zhirinovsky.'

When some people say that we are the country of filling stations — from the one hand, I want hit in their face, but from the other, I realize the rightness of these words

Never kill

Perhaps, the most vivid part of the conversation was the discussion the current situation in the country. Vittel says the Russia has long been on the verge of the economic disaster.

'If people who have led the country on the verge of the economic disaster will still rule the country, not understanding that they should eliminate that disaster (I am talking about the government now), then everything will be very bad.'

At the same time, people of 'the generation of street cleaners and watchmen' can easily go back:

'We always can hug the ground. But the young generation that grown up during the fat years – they can't do that. They used to live, as they think, well.'

Vittel believes the President of Russia Vladimir Putin to be a very lucky person: 'If he has luck again, then we will slip to a short distance. If no and the country comes to senses (both he and the government), then it is be a long distance.'

'For 31 years we didn't sit and think: 'Ok, there is no the Soviet Union anymore. Guys, let's build a new world. What should it be like?' When some people say that we are the country of filling stations — from the one hand, I want hit in their face, but from the other, I realize the rightness of these words,' said Vittel.

He also noted that he believes perestroika to be the most difficult and terrible time that the whole country and the Russians went through. He hopes that this will never happen again. 'If we drop in this hole again. What I can say. After all, we have experienced the worse thing,' Vittel believes that we 'will get out one way or the other'.

'Our country has been being killed for many centuries. But we are alive! Stop bury yourself! The fact that our government consists of idiots doesn't mean that we are also idiots. In every city, every garage we have great people with skillful hands and brains. Yes, perestroika has broke something. But we are alive. Thank God we are alive. Yes, Fursenko and Lianov have been destroying our education – but they have not destroyed it at all! And we will live!'