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In the final days of 1999, Konstantin Ernst prepared to film the Russian President’s annual New Year’s address, just as he had every December for several years. Ernst, who was thirty-eight, with floppy brown hair and a look of perpetual bemusement, had recently become the head of Channel One, the state television network with the largest reach, a post he retains today. The position makes him one of the most powerful men in Russia, with the ability to set the visual style for the country’s political life—at least the part its rulers wish to transmit to the public.
The ritual of the New Year’s address began in the seventies, under Leonid Brezhnev, who sat stolidly atop the Soviet hierarchy for two decades, and continued in the eighties under Mikhail Gorbachev, the architect of perestroika. After the Soviet collapse, Boris Yeltsin, the first President of independent Russia, kept the tradition alive. Yeltsin began his term as a charismatic advocate of democratic reform, but, by the late nineties, he seemed aged and defeated. Russia was only a year removed from a devastating financial crash that led the government to default on its debt, and its troops were fighting their second costly war in a decade in Chechnya, a would-be breakaway republic in the Caucasus. Yeltsin seemed primarily concerned with leaving office in a way that would keep him and his family immune from prosecution. On December 29th, Ernst and a crew from Channel One made their way to the Kremlin to film his address.
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Deras första tv-program var tågresan från Bergen till Oslo, i realtid, 7 timmar och 14 minuter.
1.2 miljoner norrmön såg hela eller delar av tv-programmet.
Nu blir det tyst, om jobbet. Din goda vän delar inte med sig, berättar inte – inte ens om du frågar mer direkt. Gardinen har gått ned.
Another friend of mine at Apple, who worked in an area relevant to some trouble we were having with NetNewsWire, wanted to look at the source code – and they had to go ask permission before they could even look.
I understand! I understand why Apple PR and legal departments are the way they are. But I still feel a loss to the community every time somebody I know goes to work at Apple.
There’s a curtain between us and them. Colorful, well-designed, made by lasers — but still a curtain.
