Why ‘GQ’ Doesn’t Want Russians To Read Its Story

Jerry Birenz, top lawyer for Conde Nast, issued the dictate: “Management has decided that the September issue of U.S. GQ magazine containing Scott Anderson’s article ‘Vladimir Putin’s Dark Rise to Power’ should not be distributed in Russia.”

Reported on NPR Friday, Journalist Scott Anderson, found his story spiked on digital and international editions. GQ’s corporate owners went to extraordinary lengths to try to ensure no Russians will ever see it.

So of course, the story is all over the internet. If Conde Nast thought they could keep it under wraps in the face of internet bloggers and tweeters, they must have been pretty dumb. Yeah, dumb like a fox. Birenz has figured out a way for Conde Nast to have its cake and eat it too, and serve themselves a second helping. That’s why these guys make the big bucks.

The idea that information can be sequestered at a time when people can communicate instantly across oceans and continents may seem quaint. But in this instance, Conde Nast sought, against technology, logic and the thrust of its own article, to show deference in the presence of power.

So Putin gets his bow from GQ, while GQ gets the buzz. GQ runs the story. They just ran it is so that Russians would find it harder to find. The wanted enough play to get people talking in English about the story and the magazine, but not so much play that it would leak into Russian and cause problems for a bare-knuckled government looking at some hard times ahead.

Over the weekend I spoke to a good friend of mine about this, a hot-shot lawyer who specializes in legal malpractice. He was skeptical about my Conde Nast brilliant lawyer theory. “Most people aren’t smart enough to think more than one step ahead, and the one’s who can are too lazy to bother.”

Now that makes sense. Do did Birenz and company figure that the story would break almost immediately in Russian? The guys at Gawker, a New York Media site largely devoted to celebrity gossip, thought that it should. Over the weekend they took up the banner of press freedom and ordered up a translation from readers. Here’s the running report of their progress:

[Saturday afternoon update: Just over 24 hours after we asked for your help, you've given us a pretty much complete Russian translation of the story. Thank you to everyone who pitched in. There are still a few odds and ends that are garbled Google Translate bits. Also, because the story is so long we had to break it into two posts. I have no idea if the navigation text makes sense to our Russian friends. Please email me if you can help fill in the remaining gaps or spot any particularly glaring errors. Also, if you're feeling especially heroic, we're looking for someone to proofread and smooth over the entire story. Thanks again!

Sunday afternoon update: The story has been translated and a few people have looked it over and did some proofreading. There are also some sites in Russia that have posted their own translations, which I'm told by Russian readers are quite good. You can find one here and another here.]

Press freedom equals translation freedom. Traditionally translation has been at the fiat of the wealthy, but now there is an infrastructure and growing numbers of educated bilinguals who can step into the breach in the name of a heart-felt cause.

They left the powers that be and their white-shoe lawyers in the dust.  Oh yes, and their official translators were left behind too.