Once upon a time, when things were quiet in Moscow, the then AP bureau chief Caro Kriel found a fascinating story in the word’s very wide web, claiming that city authorities had ordered police details to patrol parks in order to protect squirrels from poachers. Like those nasty guys in Africa who kill rhinos and elephants, Russian poachers catch squirrels and sell them on the black market – for food or as pets. Quite a believable story, no?
But the bureau chief did not read the Internet for her own entertainment. She ordered a shooting crew to find police patrols, squirrels and poachers. A crew was sent out to one of the Moscow parks to find and film those important elements of the potential ONLY ON AP story.
I know that foreigners likely will believe any stupid story about Russia, and that one wasn’t an exception.
Unlike New York, Moscow doesn’t have too many squirrels in its parks, but our crew did find a couple and got some stupid soundbites from Muscovites feeding them, but did not detect any police units out there to guard the helpless animals!
Sure enough, the bureau chief decided the Russian mafia in the Moscow bureau was behind the dismal failure. A certain Gorelov was found to try and save the story about non-existent squirrel patrols and large-scale poaching. He told The AP that he really heard – probably from AP itself – about “suspicious activity” in some city parks, but warned Muscovites against eating squirrels or keeping them as pets. They can scratch your face, you know?
Here’s the story “ONLY ON AP Patrols to protect Moscow squirrels following poaching reports”. At the time of writing there were six views of the video – and five of those were mine
