Salem-News.com Goes Online in Russia

Increasingly going global...

Courtesy: Translated Salem-News.com stories from ursa-tm.ru

(MOSCOW / SALEM) - It isn't every day that you have the pleasure of discovering that your product is reaching a whole new culture. Salem-News.com was notified this week that the site is now being translated for a Russian audience, which is very convenient to learn, since Oregon has a sizable Russian and Ukrainian immigrant community.

We also have a writer who lives in and is from the Russian Federation. Oleg Shirokov lives in Simferopol, Russia, which very interestingly, is a sister city of Salem, Oregon, dating back to an agreement struck during the Communist years in the early 1980's.

Young people may not all realize today that Americans and Russians were told for many years that they were essentially enemies in a conflict known as 'The Cold War'.

This war that never directly materialized, pitted the western countries against Russia and China. The 'Cole War' largely centered around the development of nuclear arms by the Americans and other western nations, and Russia, which then was the principal nation in the Soviet Union.

Today things are very different, but even during the Cold War people in Simferopol and Salem had what it took to rise above the fray and pay attention to one another, offering great mutual support and underscoring confidence at the time, that there would be a day when people in these places no longer looked at each other as enemies.

That day arrived and now this type of arrangement; the publishing of an American news group for the Russian people, is even possible.

Marat Kunaev represents the win.ru/en/index.phtml Russian web-site and these resources;

• inoforum.ru/
• ursa-tm.ru/forum/index.php

Marat explains that these sites specialize in the translations of foreign articles for a Russian-speaking audience.

Here is a link to a Salem-News.com story that is already translated onto the new Russian site:

Translated Salem-News.com stories from ursa-tm.ru

An interesting sight on interesting site, thank you.

Marat Kunaev had wonderful compliments and also is interested in our perspective, as we have found in other cases, including my appearance on Russian TV a few months ago.

There is a large degree of fair criticism of all countries, and Russia has its share of critics, but it is both interesting and powerfully good that they are interested in sharing our point of view, as we are in hearing the Russian point of view.

It also seems clear that Russian media is not fed through the same set of filters that American news in particular, always seems to clear before hitting the stands or the air.

For example, the controversy behind the official story on the September 11th 2001 attacks on the United States, which has been written about at great length by our team, is something the Russians are willing to discuss on national television. In the US the matter is always prefaced with "conspiracy theory" before a news anchor will touch it. Even then, the goal of American networks always seems to be to discredit the people who point to the vast inconsistencies with the Bush Administration's story behind what happened.

The new translated stories also include our report on how our writer in Tehran, Kourosh Ziabari, received a national award for his reporting from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, at the prestigious event.

In the case of both Oleg Shirokov in Russia, and another writer named Natalie Yaoleynik, in Sacramento, who is originally from Ukraine, and an occasional contributor to Salem-News.com; I find a talent and depth and ability to tell a story, that is often dramatic and always rare.

Finally, Natalie and I have discussed recently the similarities between our current American veterans who have fought in the war in Afghanistan, and the Russian soldiers who fought there between 1979 and 1989. Mother Russia's veterans are scarred, suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and many turn to substance abuse and suicide, an increasing problem in the United States.

It seems fair to expect that there are a few things to learn through comparative experience.

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Tim King is a former U.S. Marine with twenty years of experience on the west coast as a television news producer, photojournalist, reporter and assignment editor. In addition to his role as a war correspondent, this Los Angeles native serves as Salem-News.com's Executive News Editor. Tim spent the winter of 2006/07 covering the war in Afghanistan, and he was in Iraq over the summer of 2008, reporting from the war while embedded with both the U.S. Army and the Marines.

Tim holds numerous awards for reporting, photography, writing and editing, including the Oregon AP Award for Spot News Photographer of the Year (2004), first place Electronic Media Award in Spot News, Las Vegas, (1998), Oregon AP Cooperation Award (1991); and several others including the 2005 Red Cross Good Neighborhood Award for reporting. Serving the community in very real terms, Salem-News.com is the nation's only truly independent high traffic news Website. You can send Tim an email at this address: newsroom@salem-news.com