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Journalistic malfeasance and obsession with seaminess


Great excitement yesterday in some quarters over this picture. It even appeared on Stuff prominently displayed for a short time before, (I hope) common sense prevailed and the story was quietly demoted (and I'm fairly sure amended to remove some of the more hysterical speculation)

The Guardian gets more mileage from this image today
When two Russian athletes locked lips after taking gold at the World Athletics Championships, speculation was rife that the pair were protesting against the country's recently passed anti-gay law.

After narrowly edging out the US team to win the 400m relay at Moscow's Luzhniki stadium on Saturday, Ksenia Ryzhova and Yulia Guschina celebrated their victory with lingering kiss. They kissed again on the podium as their two teammates looked on.

But in her first comment on the incident, Ryzhova told the Guardian on Monday that the kiss was not a political statement and had nothing to do with the rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people.

"It was just happiness for our team," which has trained together for many years, Ryzhova said on Monday. She declined to comment on her attitude toward LGBT rights.

"If people want to write all sorts of dirt about us, they should at least know that Yulia and I are both married," she added.

That picture is not what it is purported to be, my friends, there wasn't one kiss on the podium yesterday, there were six. though you wouldn't know it from the reporting - the image, as captured just gave airhead reporters an opportunity to spin yet another story which was about sport into their favorite topic which doesn't have anything to do with sport.

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