Apologies are in order after Russian journalist faked death
May 31, 2018, 7:20 AM
Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
(AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
The Russian journalist who cooperated in faking his own death is now being criticized by colleagues for creating fake news.
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He’s Arkady Babchenko and I’d never heard of him until Tuesday, when I saw headlines that he was shot dead. And there was a picture of him face down, outside his apartment, with three bullets in his back.
It sounded like yet another assassination of a Putin critic, which is what he is.
But then, yesterday, Babchenko walked into a police press conference very much alive. It turns out he had helped police fake his death so that they could get video of the man who ordered the murder paying out $30,000 in $100 bills — US currency — to the hitman, who turned out to be in on the ruse.
But now to the ethical issue. Did Babchenko betray his profession by cooperating in the spreading of a false story? Yes. And apologies are in order.
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But his colleagues should let it go. Ukraine is essentially in a slow-motion war for its existence. Babchenko wasn’t faking news to screw up an election, he was faking news to screw up an assassin.
Garry Kasparov, the Russian chess genius, congratulated him, and had a line I wish I thought of: “people who get resurrected have a track record of doing great things.”
Probably sounds even better in Russian.
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