The fourth estate is still in force! The son's fame helped his mother solve the problem

Novye Izvestia has already written about a new network campaign, which is dedicated to the unenviable fate of the “fourth estate” in Russia: how publications are closed and fined, or they and journalists are given the status of a foreign agent. Despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of publications on this topic are extremely pessimistic, and they talk about the idea of the actual destruction of the profession, there is another point of view. For example, journalist Yekaterina Wagner, comparing Soviet censorship with current Russian censorship, writes:

“Now the censorship is different, much more stupid and ineffective - at that time they did not let in specific materials, now they are trying to close the entire publication. As if they do not understand that in the era of social networks, a journalist cannot be shut up by closing the publication. And in the place of the closed one, a new one will appear, or even two - journalists do not go anywhere, readers do not go anywhere, and, most interestingly, people who are ready to give money for this do not go anywhere either. Some fall off, new ones come in their place..."

And the famous Moscow opposition publicist Ivan Davydov wittily proves that the "fourth estate" is still in force, publishing a very funny story on his blog:

“I continue to view notes with the tag #forbidden_professional.

It's all sad, of course, friends. But for some reason I remembered that there is a direct benefit from doing journalism.

Last year, my mother decided to buy herself a new sofa. I went to one of the furniture stores in that small town near Moscow where she lives, chose, paid.

No, this is some kind of simple description. She was getting ready. For her, this is an event and an act. I visited all furniture stores in the city (however, there are not many of them). I thought it over for a long time, made up my mind, and only then bought it.

They took the money and promised that the sofa would be delivered in two weeks. Of course, they didn't. They called and said - problems with components, we have to wait another week.

This was repeated three or four more times. She called the store, went to the store, was afraid that she would be deceived, even cried. After all, she already had a whole plan in her head - how this unfortunate sofa will be brought to her, how she will invite us to visit, how we will admire and praise her taste.

In general, during the next visit to the store, she burst into tears right there. The sellers rushed to console them, and their mother told them that her son was a famous journalist and would tell the whole country what scoundrels were working here.

The threat was suddenly taken seriously.

- What is the name of your son? - asked the manager and nodded to his subordinate, - go on the Internet and look.

Two minutes later, the subordinate returned and whispered something in the manager's ear. A minute later, my mother was fed chocolates and wrote out papers for her on the coffee table - as compensation for the wait, free of charge, with a bonus from the company.

A couple of days later, sitting on a new sofa, I was collecting this unnecessary table.

But I am a moderately famous journalist. Very moderate. However, this was enough.

Say what you like, but we are the fourth estate..."