Karshkovia
14-01-2008, 18:56
ooc: (open MT rp)
Volograd Times
January 2008
Karshkovians Rage Against The Magazine
International Geographic Article Angers Citizens
One Karshkovian labeled International Geographic “The Empty Integrity.”
Other current and former citizens assailed the venerable publication for “lazy journalism,” “babbling of a delusional mind” and “gross misrepresentations.”
Still others charge that the magazine has published errors, “drivel” and “a hackneyed narrative.”
The fuss is over International Geographic’s January issue with a spread titled “The Emptied Prairie.” In it the magazine paints a dismal picture of Karshkovia, where an abandoned house represents “just one bone in a gigantic skeleton of abandoned human desire.”
The overwhelming portrait is of a depressingly empty, wind-ravaged landscape dotted only by decrepit remnants of sorry little ghost towns with ramshackle, abandoned houses populated by corpses of goats and cats. Only a few die-hard old fogies are still stuck living in them, according to the magazine's telling. Everyone else has moved away or committed suicide.
“What happens is that some people cash in on their property and move someplace warmer and easier. The rest grow old and die,” the mag writes, not accounting for the rest of the world, where everyone grows old and dies.
“There are constant funerals,” the story intones. And when rural Karshkovian churches close, “sometimes the congregation decides to burn the building to end the pain."
The writer dispenses with the rest of the state, its positive characteristics and overall robust economy in a few sentences. Even the smattering of positive references is anchored with gloom.
“All this decline exists amid a seeming statistical prosperity,” he writes. “Oil is booming, wheat prices are at record highs.” He concludes with a remark about “paper millionaires living in the lonely sweep of the high prairie with the surrounding community gone to the wind.”
In a passing reference to growth, he mentions only Zostar, Miniski, Rostov and Volograd, the largest cities in the nation.
Only one sentence reflects any appreciation from the writer: “Karshkovia is a rarely visited nation and surely one of the loveliest and most moving.”
Reaction furious
The reaction from Karshkovians and ex-Karshkovians has been furious. Dozens have written e-mails to the magazine prompted in part by the Commerce Department’s appeal to its 2,000 “Ambassadors,” self-appointed, amateur image boosters and business recruiters.
Prime Minister Valentina Borofsky is working on a response, and hope to convince the magazine's Editor-in-Chief to follow up with a second piece that balances the damage done by its writers.
“She’s as offended as anyone,” Deputy Minister Itania Fedorcha said of Borofsky, "This is her home and these words hurt her just as much as a native born Karshkovian."
A lively e-mail exchange among members and friends of "Preservation Karshkovia", an organization to keep native Karshkovians living abroad in touch with their home nation, who are convinced many of the stunning but depressing images in the “The Emptied Prairie” were contrived or staged.
Some who wrote to the magazine accuse its editors of failing to check facts and say they assume now that other stories in International Geographic are of questionable accuracy.
Several criticize the writer for his statement that, “In most of the world, abandoned buildings are a sign of change and shifting economic opportunities. On the High Plains, they always mean that something in the earth and sky mutinied against the people.”
No, it doesn’t, they write; it means that agriculture became mechanized and scientific, just as urban commerce and everything else in present-day Karshkovia is not what it once was.
“The writer seems to mingle the challenges of the 1900s with the present economic realities, and attributes a declining rural population to a harsh environment,” wrote President Vladimir Radchenko “To read this article is to be left with a sense that Karshkovia is largely a bone yard of wrecked, lonely lives, abandoned, rotting structures and hopelessly cruel conditions which is far from the truth. Even the photo of a rural, country road is labeled in a way that would make the reader think Karshkovia’s excellent network of highways is unpaved. Nothing is mentioned of the nation’s vibrant promotion of economic diversity, music culture, tourist resorts, low crime rate, historic preservation efforts and the beauty of the high prairie. Perhaps it is just as well that the writer only told part of the story to accomplish his artistic journalism. A measure of what annually draws me back to my native countryside is the majestic sweep of its clean, un-congested landscape. International Geographic has artfully done their best to make certain it stays that way.”
Report is ‘old news’
Many blast International Geographic for coming to Karshkovia bent on producing a wholly unoriginal collection of clichés and stereotypes. That many of Karshkovia’s smallest towns have shriveled is neither fresh information nor unique to this nation, they charge.
The article “is old news,” writes Mikal Yasin, who owns a marketing and advertising firm in Miniski. “The population of rural areas in the region has been declining steadily for decades.”
The magazines’ photos include a debris-filled classroom in the closed school in Gavoy, a severed doll’s head in a farmstead’s garage near Tryst Lake, the weathered buildings of what’s left of Corinthia and the remnants of a deer carcass with an abandoned house behind.
The story and photos indicate that the magazine targeted 14 towns, nine of which were hamlets even in their greatest prosperity. They never reached more than 225 residents. Some are not incorporated as cities, or like Havlov, never were.
The other five they visited were all towns with less than 400 residents in the 1999 Census.
There is no mention of the lively main streets in New Roccord, Watci, and other locales, nor the quiet, hidden gems such as Pelovo, nor of the bustling machinery manufacturing in Yviner, Wisheki and elsewhere.
The nation's status as being the one of the most welcoming to foreign nationals and a top producer of about a dozen commodities is not referenced, nor are the nation’s standout institutions of higher education.
International Geographic did not wish to comment on the article, stating it stood behind its writers.
Volograd Times
January 2008
Karshkovians Rage Against The Magazine
International Geographic Article Angers Citizens
One Karshkovian labeled International Geographic “The Empty Integrity.”
Other current and former citizens assailed the venerable publication for “lazy journalism,” “babbling of a delusional mind” and “gross misrepresentations.”
Still others charge that the magazine has published errors, “drivel” and “a hackneyed narrative.”
The fuss is over International Geographic’s January issue with a spread titled “The Emptied Prairie.” In it the magazine paints a dismal picture of Karshkovia, where an abandoned house represents “just one bone in a gigantic skeleton of abandoned human desire.”
The overwhelming portrait is of a depressingly empty, wind-ravaged landscape dotted only by decrepit remnants of sorry little ghost towns with ramshackle, abandoned houses populated by corpses of goats and cats. Only a few die-hard old fogies are still stuck living in them, according to the magazine's telling. Everyone else has moved away or committed suicide.
“What happens is that some people cash in on their property and move someplace warmer and easier. The rest grow old and die,” the mag writes, not accounting for the rest of the world, where everyone grows old and dies.
“There are constant funerals,” the story intones. And when rural Karshkovian churches close, “sometimes the congregation decides to burn the building to end the pain."
The writer dispenses with the rest of the state, its positive characteristics and overall robust economy in a few sentences. Even the smattering of positive references is anchored with gloom.
“All this decline exists amid a seeming statistical prosperity,” he writes. “Oil is booming, wheat prices are at record highs.” He concludes with a remark about “paper millionaires living in the lonely sweep of the high prairie with the surrounding community gone to the wind.”
In a passing reference to growth, he mentions only Zostar, Miniski, Rostov and Volograd, the largest cities in the nation.
Only one sentence reflects any appreciation from the writer: “Karshkovia is a rarely visited nation and surely one of the loveliest and most moving.”
Reaction furious
The reaction from Karshkovians and ex-Karshkovians has been furious. Dozens have written e-mails to the magazine prompted in part by the Commerce Department’s appeal to its 2,000 “Ambassadors,” self-appointed, amateur image boosters and business recruiters.
Prime Minister Valentina Borofsky is working on a response, and hope to convince the magazine's Editor-in-Chief to follow up with a second piece that balances the damage done by its writers.
“She’s as offended as anyone,” Deputy Minister Itania Fedorcha said of Borofsky, "This is her home and these words hurt her just as much as a native born Karshkovian."
A lively e-mail exchange among members and friends of "Preservation Karshkovia", an organization to keep native Karshkovians living abroad in touch with their home nation, who are convinced many of the stunning but depressing images in the “The Emptied Prairie” were contrived or staged.
Some who wrote to the magazine accuse its editors of failing to check facts and say they assume now that other stories in International Geographic are of questionable accuracy.
Several criticize the writer for his statement that, “In most of the world, abandoned buildings are a sign of change and shifting economic opportunities. On the High Plains, they always mean that something in the earth and sky mutinied against the people.”
No, it doesn’t, they write; it means that agriculture became mechanized and scientific, just as urban commerce and everything else in present-day Karshkovia is not what it once was.
“The writer seems to mingle the challenges of the 1900s with the present economic realities, and attributes a declining rural population to a harsh environment,” wrote President Vladimir Radchenko “To read this article is to be left with a sense that Karshkovia is largely a bone yard of wrecked, lonely lives, abandoned, rotting structures and hopelessly cruel conditions which is far from the truth. Even the photo of a rural, country road is labeled in a way that would make the reader think Karshkovia’s excellent network of highways is unpaved. Nothing is mentioned of the nation’s vibrant promotion of economic diversity, music culture, tourist resorts, low crime rate, historic preservation efforts and the beauty of the high prairie. Perhaps it is just as well that the writer only told part of the story to accomplish his artistic journalism. A measure of what annually draws me back to my native countryside is the majestic sweep of its clean, un-congested landscape. International Geographic has artfully done their best to make certain it stays that way.”
Report is ‘old news’
Many blast International Geographic for coming to Karshkovia bent on producing a wholly unoriginal collection of clichés and stereotypes. That many of Karshkovia’s smallest towns have shriveled is neither fresh information nor unique to this nation, they charge.
The article “is old news,” writes Mikal Yasin, who owns a marketing and advertising firm in Miniski. “The population of rural areas in the region has been declining steadily for decades.”
The magazines’ photos include a debris-filled classroom in the closed school in Gavoy, a severed doll’s head in a farmstead’s garage near Tryst Lake, the weathered buildings of what’s left of Corinthia and the remnants of a deer carcass with an abandoned house behind.
The story and photos indicate that the magazine targeted 14 towns, nine of which were hamlets even in their greatest prosperity. They never reached more than 225 residents. Some are not incorporated as cities, or like Havlov, never were.
The other five they visited were all towns with less than 400 residents in the 1999 Census.
There is no mention of the lively main streets in New Roccord, Watci, and other locales, nor the quiet, hidden gems such as Pelovo, nor of the bustling machinery manufacturing in Yviner, Wisheki and elsewhere.
The nation's status as being the one of the most welcoming to foreign nationals and a top producer of about a dozen commodities is not referenced, nor are the nation’s standout institutions of higher education.
International Geographic did not wish to comment on the article, stating it stood behind its writers.