On the other side of the television screen viewers sit in rapt attention as the news unrolls. Some do. Others are making dinner, looking after children, and looking at the screen when something catches their attention. Some are working on the Internet, or sending emails to friends. So far, the picture could come from anywhere. It is what happens next that makes this very Russian case so intriguing. There are very few advantages that the people in Russia on the other side of the screen can claim. Control over what goes out on the screen comes from Moscow, as one after the other independent stations have been checkmated – usually by that persuasive charge of “insufficient funds.” Russian viewers are intriguing because under these conditions they have developed some extraordinary ways to process the news – about which they care very much and always have done – in order to make sense out of it. Developing and enriching a sense of what is really happening on the news depends on what the viewers can bring for themselves. Most important of the instruments in their personal tool box is the capacity to effect a mental shortcut, so that what is given out as news can be made familiar, drawn out of the memory's storehouse of categories or schemas that not only fit this case but illuminate its real meaning.