Remember Walter Duranty? We certainly do — not personally, of course, since Duranty died nearly 70 years ago, but Duranty left an indelible stain on journalism before he left. And unfortunately, also helped establish its current model.
Duranty won a Pulitzer Prize as the Moscow bureau chief for the New York Times, whose journalistic work consisted of ‘reporting’ whatever propaganda suited Josef Stalin and the Soviets best. Duranty gained notoriety for ‘debunking’ claims of abuses by the Communists, and particularly for denying the intentional program of starvation imposed by Stalin on the kulaks of Ukraine. The famines killed millions and displaced more, all while Duranty reassuringly ‘reported’ on the successes of the Soviet system.
Malcolm Muggeridge survived to help expose Duranty; Gareth Jones did not, although his work posthumously exposed Duranty…
