Cockcroach Grabs the Limelight
The Western mainstream media are not exactly known for their comprehensive, well-informed and balanced reporting of events in many parts of the world, and, unsurprisingly, stories from Turkmenistan are no exception; there’s got to be something a little exotic, dare I say even bizarre, for a story to warrant interest (supplying humanitarian aid is just so, well, boring).
In this case, British broadsheet [i.e. “quality”] newspaper the Guardian has turned its attention to events on Turkmen television with an article entitled “And finally… how the march of a lone cockcroach put 30 people out of work”.
It has to be said that readers would be forgiven for thinking that April Fool’s Day has come early:
For the viewers of Turkmenistan’s popular nightly news programme, Vatan, it was another routine bulletin. But as the newsreader began the 9pm broadcast, viewers across the central Asian country spotted something unusual crawling across the studio table: a large brown cockroach.
The cockroach managed to complete a whole lap of the desk, apparently undetected, before disappearing. The programme, complete with cockroach, was repeated at 11pm that night.
It was only at 9am the following day that horrified officials from Turkmenistan’s ministry of culture discovered the cockroach’s guest appearance.
As the author goes on to note, ideally this would have been the end of the matter, with the footage added to a blooper archive to be ferreted out in future years for general amusement over what sometimes goes wrong (probably in the “never work with animals” section of the show).
Not in Turkmenistan though: citing the website Khronika Turkmenistana, the Guardian notes that President Berdymukhamedov reacted by ordering the dismissal of 30 employees, including “highly qualified cadres with a great deal of professional experience”.
Aside from speculation that such a strong reaction from the President might have been provoked by his previous career as an undoubtedly hygiene-obsessed dentist and noting that Turkmenistan has been gradually “opening up” following the death of Turkmenibashi, the Guardian digs no deeper for any significance: just another example of a basket case country, surely?
A quick read to the end of the original Khronika Turkmenistana article suggests otherwise:
As journalists themselves note, Turkmen media is suffering from completely inexplicable trends. When new bosses arrive, they start firing everyone one after the other for the smallest slip-up, taking no account of professional qualifications and experience.
At the same time practically no attention is being paid to preparing new cadres. At the start of the year, a group of TV workers were selected to go and study at Ostankino in Moscow. However, the trip was later cancelled and no reason was given.
The report concludes with a serious question, albeit presented in a jocular manner (classic laughter-through-tears, as was often seen in neweurasia’s cross-blog humour survey):
Which cadres will work in Turkmen television in the near future is a rhetorical question - especially for cockroach TV stars.
The enlightened Berdymukhamedov would do well to think on this question before reacting to any other unexpected guest appearances on TV.
on February 23rd, 2008 at 12:12 pm
I’m a foreigner resident in Turkmenistan. I watched the broadcasts of Watan news in early February and there was no sign of any cockroach. I have many local acquaintances who watch Watan regularly and nobody has seen the cockroach. In fact, after probing, NO ONE I can find in the country has seen the cockroach. Perhaps that’s why chrono-tm website story does not even give an exact date when this allegedly happened. Because it probably did not.
In fact, as I ask around about the cockroach no one has even heard that it was reported abroad or at all. Most people are suprised because they know that surely they would have heard about that mistake on air. They talk about and discuss other things that go wrong on broadcasts, but no one’s seen this one for themselves.
The President’s firings are always public and widely announced. Not in this case, because it probably never happened.
If it really happned, surely it would be on ‘youtube’ by now. But it’s not.
Sadly, the opposition websites run by exiles abroad (exiled for good reason, no doubt) but who have little access to Turkmenistan, are doing themselves no favors by posting totally unsubstantiated stories. This is the most ridiculous unsubstantiated story that I’ve seen from them in months. Instead they should seek to report on things that they can substantiate. Or clearly state what is rumor or hearsay.