“Russia: Hmmm. Lemme think. It's cold, with nuclear missiles, and… BEARS! Right? Russian BEARS! Bears in…Siberia! That's in Russia too, right? and it's cold! Cold and full of Russian bears! Perfect!” (-NOT Luke Harding's last words, morning of July 24)
I never thought I’d say it, but as I glanced at the menacing headline: “Bears Eat Two Men“ and then spotted the words “Luke” and “Harding” below, I felt an, ahem, grizzly pang of conscience.
The Guardian's man in Moscow may have been a smug, plagiarising hack, but still, being eaten by a bear is a bit harsh.
Besides, didn't he just re-write a witty annual expose of the craaazy Putin youth camp Nashi?
But several signs immediately told me that Harding was in no immediate danger:
1) The article was an almost exact rehash of a piece published a day earlier in The Scotsman (Starving Bears Kill 2 Geologists) by Alexei Dovbysh (who was actually reporting FROM Siberia). That article is itself a re-write of Dovbysh's original piece for Reuters on the 22nd. That's where Harding found the following quote: “‘Either way there is not enough food,’ the spokesman said.”
2) It also contains entire quotes lifted straight from an AP wire story from the 23rd: (“These predators have to be destroyed,” Leushkin was quoted as saying. “Once they kill a human, they will do it again and again.”)
3) The actual event happened a week ago.
4) As a former BBC employee put it in a response to my email that Harding may have been eaten alive:
“No such luck. I mean, it's not as if he actually leaves the Guardian's bureau, right? Another piece pulled shamelessly off the wires. Good old Luke“
Phew!