Without access to political figures and unable to freely cover Russia's real problems, even the serious Russian media has taken up the job of the paparazzi (by Georgy Bovt, special to Russia Profile).
If there is one thing that the Russian media has learned to do very efficiently and on a wide scale, it is how to cover obsessively the death of every pop culture figure, from the most famous to the generally obscure. It would be hard to name a public figure in Russia today who would be able to escape the omnipresent press that is sure to chew over his illness, suffering or sudden death without sparing the sinister and gory details.
It seems that in covering the dramas, illnesses and tragedies of public figures, the Russian media is trying to get revenge for all the humiliations, restrictions and even repressions they have been subjected to in the last few years. It's like this: if we can't really expose any political corruption scandals; if we can't carry out truly independent investigations; if we can't write all the nasty details about political or financial deals and intrigues, then let's just bring all of our "quasi-free speech" force down on popular figures.
This stylistic platform has diminished the gap between the Russian "yellow press" and the press that had pretensions of respectability. It used to be that only the paparazzi would hunt down pop stars and spy on oligarchs. The serious papers would write reports from the Chechen war front. Now there are almost no reports from the Caucasus and everyone is focused on Roman Abramovich's latest flame.
