Shhh! American Prisoners Being Held in Afghanistan

November 28, 2002 5:22 AM

Shhh! American Prisoners Being Held in Afghanistan This report is from Pravda, the Russian newspaper. I have not seen any media posting of this story and I wonder whether the story is false or our media does not want to go into this. Anyone at MF hear of this before?
posted by Postroad (17 comments total)

Just fact checking here: didn't Stalin write for Pravda during his youth, when he was a political rebel? (I'm no good with Russian, but doesn't Pravda translate to "Truth", which is what Stalin's former paper's name meant?)

Sorry for the OT comment. The answer's going to dog me all day.
posted by Dark Messiah at 6:56 AM on November 28, 2002

The 'revived' Pravda, which now appears to be no more than a bloke in his bedroom, simply copied this. Here's the website of the newspaper from which this piece is sourced.
posted by riviera at 7:34 AM on November 28, 2002

Dark Messiah, Not only did he write for them, he was on the editorial staff. Yes, it means truth in English.
posted by whatzit at 7:35 AM on November 28, 2002

Dark Messiah: Pravda was the official newspaper of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union throughout the existence of the latter; there was an earlier Pravda run by Trotsky, but Lenin & Co. swiped the name and forced him to shut it down in 1912.
There's a book of reproductions of stories (from the famous one) that might be fun to see. Yes, pravda means 'truth' and izvestia (the name of the other famous Soviet paper) means 'news'; there was a tired joke in the USSR that "In Pravda there is no news and in Izvestia no truth."
posted by languagehat at 7:43 AM on November 28, 2002

From whatzit's source:

There is a new biography up - Benito Mussolini, everyone's favorite Italian dictator. Be sure to check it out.

Good grief.
posted by xiffix at 7:57 AM on November 28, 2002

Yeah, that was quite a good giggle. I'm hoping it was in jest - Mussolini certainly wasn't my favorite Italian dictator. Thanks for the Izvestia quip, languagehat.
posted by whatzit at 8:05 AM on November 28, 2002

I wonder whether the story is false or our media does not want to go into this.
Well, you caught us again, Postroad. I was at the media conspiracy meeting on Tuesday when we decided the public wasn't ready to handle news of this magnitude. Not easy to get one past you.
posted by planetkyoto at 8:05 AM on November 28, 2002

The answer's going to dog me all day

- perhaps a dog day afternoon.
posted by johnnyboy at 8:11 AM on November 28, 2002

BTW, languagehat, who is your favorite Italian dictator?
posted by donfactor at 8:11 AM on November 28, 2002

Pravda, which the new government briefly banned (1993), remained aligned with the former Communists. In 1994 an editorial faction at Pravda opened a rival paper with the same name, and in 1998 the original Pravda changed its name to Slovo (“the word”). -- Columbia Enc.

The Pravda Online site is run by this former editorial staff {bloke count: thirty}, who have gained an entertaining reputation. The website contains both original reporting and dubiously-sourced newswire translations; think of it as a Russian Ananova. Sometimes you can read an English translation of a Russian story glossed from an English AP/Reuters/UPI item you read yesterday.

There were also regional editions of Pravda, which were state companies and thus became stock companies, and many of them continue today, with names like Ukrainska Pravda or Komsomolskaya Pravda. These are separately run and not to be confused.

The Frontier Post, in turn, seems to be a "Weekly Turbanned Nutcase News". They've been regularly reporting on mysterious American casualties -- the overall count since a year ago probably tops 1000 by now. Apparently our boys are out getting killed even when they're watching the Disney channel back at base camp. It's an amusing source of perspective rumor from the Northwest Frontier Province and Tribal Areas, but not very reliable.
posted by dhartung at 9:23 AM on November 28, 2002

the overall count since a year ago probably tops 1000 by now.

You are Marc Herold, and I claim my ten shillings.
posted by riviera at 9:42 AM on November 28, 2002

donfactor: My favorite Italian dictator? Hmm... I guess it would be a tossup between this one and this one.
posted by languagehat at 2:19 PM on November 28, 2002

Well, as anyone who reads fark knows, pravda.ru is hardly a bastion of truth.

They also regularly report on UFOs and the like.
posted by delmoi at 2:28 PM on November 28, 2002

Thanks languagehat, I'm with you on those.
posted by donfactor at 3:47 PM on November 28, 2002

I've got a soft spot for this one.
posted by homunculus at 4:52 PM on November 28, 2002

Pravda is apparently run by 12-year-olds with a mischevious bent. The things that they report on are completely insane. Egyptian cyborg mummies and aliens invading the White House and the like. It's really funny, but I wouldn't believe a word of it.
posted by waldo at 8:55 PM on November 28, 2002

homunculus: Me too -- forgot about him!


The things that they report on are completely insane.

The things they reported on were always completely insane; at least now they're funny as well.
posted by languagehat at 8:07 AM on November 29, 2002