Quote

Fact-checking is a terrible way to report on Donald Trump's lying . It's like we enter into a dialogue with him. It's as though, he says A, and we check A, and it gives it no context. Saying that he's misstating is an even worse way of covering it. That's NPR's ridiculous policy of not calling his lies lies. It's really destructive

Masha Gessen

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Masha Gessen
Age: 57
Born: 1967
Born: January 13
Activist
Journalist
Translator
Writer
Moscow
Russian SFSR
Like
Trump
Donald
Covering
Saying
Calling
Report
Though
Worse
Context
Lying
Lies
Check
Fact
Gives
Destructive
Giving
Terrible
Enter
Even
Policy
Dialogue
Really
Says
Ridiculous
Checking

More quotes by Masha Gessen

Image
There was this very strange moment when the world discovered what was going on for LGBT people in Russia. It was very gratifying: I thought, there is a world out there, a saner world. It had felt sort of desperate and bizarre until that point.
Masha Gessen
Image
For the first ten years, Vladimir Putin was constructing his power structure, and now he's defending it. He's retrenching, mobilizing a shrinking constituency, constructing an enemy that's really scary. It's war. And when you look at the anti-gay campaign, it's a classic case of war rhetoric: demonstrating an immediate and extreme danger.
Masha Gessen
Image
Pussy Riot have certainly changed some people's assumptions about the role of political art and the relationship between the intelligentsia and the church. That's a hell of a lot to do in a forty-second performance.
Masha Gessen
Image
One of the things that I really value about Russian culture is that on the private level it allows for a huge amount of variety and individuality with regards to family structure.
Masha Gessen
Image
When you lose your freedom, you lose, first and foremost, the opportunity to choose the company you keep.
Masha Gessen
Image
We have the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church talking about how gay marriage is a sign of the apocalypse, or Russian TV talking about how meteorites are coming to punish Russians for homosexuality.
Masha Gessen
Image
There's not a whole lot of similarity between the two societies, Russian and American. There are similarities behind psychological forces. One thing we can learn is that things can change pretty fast. And this idea that we know who we are and that things can only get so bad in this country - that's wrong.
Masha Gessen
Image
One of the most famous lines in contemporary Russian poetry is Erica makes four copies and that's enough. That's the ethos we're aiming for. This is not to say I don't want lots of people to read my book, I do. I especially want people to read it who will feel better, and safer, or at least understood.
Masha Gessen
Image
... fighting for gay marriage generally involves lying about what we are going to do with marriage when we get there-because we lie that the institution of marriage is not going to change, and that is a lie. The institution of marriage is going to change, and it should change. And again, I don't think it should exist.
Masha Gessen
Image
It's not natural for people in the opposition to leave. It's always a personal catastrophe.
Masha Gessen
Image
When you're part of the opposition you want to stay. It's part of your identity. You're useless if you leave. You feel like you have failed.
Masha Gessen