An American journalist writing for Forbes wrote an article about how rich Russians walk around the streets of Moscow eating lemons because lemons are so expensive in Russia that only millionaires can afford them. So lemons are a huge status symbol, she said. Obviously, she’s never been to Russia or spoken to anybody from Russia. Some Silicone Valley idiot told her this story and she published it as fact.
After people massively ridiculed the article, the poor dumb broad had to amend it and delete references to the mythical rich lemon-eaters in Russia.
Not even in the Soviet times did anybody in the USSR suffer from lemon shortages. But this kind of reporting reflects the general ignorance of the US journalists about the world.
It’s not the internet that killed journalism. It’s these smug, ignorant chirpers who don’t even try to research anything before publishing.
P.S. The slang word for a million in Russian is lemon. Which is where the story originated, I believe. If somebody has ten million dollars, in Russian one would say that he has ten lemons. The journalist probably took the expression literally and thought, “poor Russians, they are starving to the point where anybody with a few lemons seems rich.”
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