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The War in Georgia
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Olga Ivanova's Aug. 15 op-ed, bemoaning coverage of the Russia-Georgia conflict and what she viewed as the absence of a free press in the United States, confused several issues and amounted to a rush to judgment.
Ms. Ivanova seemed to assume that a free press will always obtain accurate information immediately. In fact, a free press can and does make mistakes. The essence of a free press is not that its reporting is always and immediately accurate but that the government does not dictate the "facts" to be reported.
American media weren't immediately accurate in their reporting on the Russian-Georgian conflict, but they were free to continue that reporting, which has since produced more objective and accurate coverage.
I lived in Russia during the Boris Yeltsin era and recall very vividly the brief if not always shining moment of a free press in Russia in the 20th century. That coverage was distinctly different from, say, coverage of Russia's election last year or the hagiographic reporting of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's most recent birthday.
LENA ZEZULIN
Takoma Park
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