I’m just back from a movie theater where I watched “Thank you for smoking”, a very funny film based on a Christopher Buckley novel about a chief spokesman for Big Tobacco, who makes his living defending the rights of smokers and cigarette makers.
It is an amusing portrayal of a very clever spin master able to sell almost anything to the credulous public. Just as I was watching it, a striking analogy came to my mind. Alexander Zimovovsky, director of Belarusian state television and radio company, does exactly the same job. Previously he made his name hosting an opposition-bashing prime-time analytic program “Resonance.” But even in his new high-rank position he could not keep out of the heat and is currently hosting “Hard Talk,” a mere parody of the famous BBC program. Zimovsky also co-produced a calumniatory, slanderous documentary “Conspiracy Theory. Controllable Chaos.”
Anatol Labedzka, leader of Belarusian United Civic Party, is currently suing Zimovsky. The opposition leader accuses Belarusian television of libel and demands 1 billion Belarusian rubles as an indemnification of moral harm.
It is very doubtful that the trial will meet the requirements of the accuser. Zimovsky has already stated that he did not consider the material as libelous. He notified that the video episode where Labedzka figured had been received from an anonym discordant with Milinkevich’s stance.
Protected by the courts a dictator could boast of, Zimovsky can sell well about anything without any worries about ethic implications of journalistic profession. Nick Naylor of Big Tobacco could only dream of such a protectorate. But just as his cinematographic prototype, Zimovsky may well end up one day in a van with some masked “fans,” willing to say “thank you for lying.”