Note to celebs: sensational there will be sensational here. Latest case in point: Erica Jong’s pronouncement that “blood will run in the streets” if Barack Obama loses the election. She was talking to the Italian Corriere della Serra. For good measure, she talks of a “second civil war” and explains that “President Bush has recalled soldiers from Iraq for Dick Cheney to lead against American citizens in the streets”. She adds that “voting machines are rigged”. For gossip value, she informs the Italian public that Jane Fonda “cried all night” from stress and that “Ken Follett and Susan Cheever are extremely worried”.
Would she have spoken in the same manner to an American media? Probably not.
It’s the pain and joy of writing for the foreign press.
The pain is, if there are no American interests at stake (a product or a treaty to sell to the overseas audience), most Americans have no interest in talking to the foreign media. There is one notable exception: the British press, often used as a conduit for material that would not be first printed in the US. Latest example: Barack Obama’s aunt Zeituni’s story. Otherwise the operating rule is, in the memorable words of an American elected official: “Why should I speak to you, your readers don’t vote for me”.
On the other hand, when they do accept to talk, there is always the latent impression that foreigners don’t know much, and thus need to be properly impressed with simplified or exaggerated statements. There is also the assumption that nobody at home will hear of those declarations, thus the liberating experience of expressing oneself in an unguarded manner. That’s the joy of it: occasionally, people will actually speak their minds without mental reservations. For better or worse.
… and then because we’re in an increasingly Internet-ed world, someone will read it, and translate it, and it will be picked up by the bloggers or the “main stream media”, and word will spread back in English, back to the sender.
