Earlier today we told you about NASCAR fans booing Michelle Obama at the Ford 400 Sprint Cup race — I guess this means her husband shouldn’t be counting on the mullet and half-t shirt vote. But at least we can be thankful we live in a country where that stuff isn’t edited out of the TV broadcast. As they do in Russia.
Fedor Emelianenko beat American Jeff Monson in an MMA M1 Global Event in Moscow on Sunday, but the bigger news is that Russian President Vladmir Putin was roundly booed as he addressed the crowd following the march — a rather unheard of turn of events in the country where he is, or was, generally perceived as being very popular.
For many TV viewers, however, it’s as if the boos never happened.
Here’s the unedited version of Putin’s reception (in addition to the boos, the whistles are also considered derisive in Russia).
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And here’s the version shown by Channel One, Russia’s largest, state-run, TV station:
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From ABC News:
Viewers uploaded the television footage to YouTube, where it had been viewed more than 500,000 times on Monday morning.
Mr Putin hugs Emelianenko and launches into a speech, but appears to pause as the crowd greets his opening line with whistles and low-pitched booing. It only breaks into cheers as he praises Emelianenko as a “real Russian hero”.
The speech was a rare public relations failure for the premier, whose television appearances are usually tightly stage-managed, although opinions varied on Monday as to whether the boos were specifically directed at Mr Putin.
The top news show on Channel One, later tightly edited the speech, showing only the one phrase that provoked a cheer.
Blogger Alexei Navalny, famed for exposing corruption, posted the video on his site and wrote that it was “the end of an era”.
“The premier was whistled in time-honoured tradition,” Alexander Averin of The Other Russia opposition movement wrote in a comment on its website.
“People are already sick of Putin, just sick of him.”
Some are saying, however, that the boos were not as much prompted by Putin’s political policies as they were by the fact that no one was allowed to leave the stadium during his speech. Nope, not even to go to the restroom.
Kristina Potupchik, a spokesperson for the pro-Kremlin youth movement Nashi, said in her LiveJournal blog the crowd was “anxious” to get to the toilets.
Putin, 59, who announced plans to return to the presidency next year, has seen his approval rating fall significantly in recent months. Only 35 percent support the premier, down from 61 percent last February, according to a poll carried out by the independent Levada Center last month.
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- skids003 - Nov 22, 2011 at 1:42 PM
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Actually Rick, they may not edit it in the uSA, but the Lame Street Media just won’t even report it, they just completely ignore, depending on the political views of the person being booed.
