ABOUT WORLD BLOG

NBC News World Blog aims to provide a dynamic look at world events and trends -- both big and small -- from NBC News correspondents, producers, and bureaus around the world. Online entries -- from text to video -- will explore news events and how they are shaping our world.

Regular contributors include NBC News correspondents, producers and staff based in bureaus across the world and on assignment.

Click here to read more about the journalists behind NBC News World Blog.



In Russia, Time magazine leaves them breathless

Posted: Thursday, December 20, 2007 10:58 AM
Filed Under:

By Yonatan Pomrenze, NBC News Producer

MOSCOW – The phone rang. It was a frantic call from a colleague who works at NTV, one of Russia’s major television stations.

"Is there any way we can watch the ‘Today’ show here in Moscow?" she asked me. "We heard they will be announcing Time magazine’s Person of the Year, and we want to be watching in case they choose President Putin."

I couldn’t help her with the ‘Today’ show, but otherwise she wasn’t disappointed. Time did chose President Vladimir Putin as their Person of the Year, citing as a major factor his efforts to bring Russia "roaring back to the table of world power."

VIDEO: Putin is named TIME person of the Year

Along with the two other largest television networks in Russia (all three are run by the Kremlin or Kremlin-friendly companies), NTV had a story which would earn Putin even more airtime than the ample amount he usually gets: an American magazine chooses Russia’s president at its Person of the Year, at a time when tensions between the countries are on the rise over disputes about the political direction that Russia is taking.

'For better or worse'
The United States and much of Europe have criticized what they see as a democratic backslide in Russia, even calling parliamentary elections held earlier this month neither free nor fair. Putin, on the other hand, made a central theme of the election the need to protect Russia from the outside influence of other countries that wish to destabilize her – a not-so-veiled swipe at the West.

Time’s choice of Putin was played out on the major networks here as a nod of support for Putin’s style of leadership. All the networks dedicated between 5 and 10 minutes of their evening newscast to the story, showing long clips of Putin answering Time reporters’ questions. This morning, the "Tvoi Den" tabloid headline declared that "Americans Chose Putin: Bush no longer rates with the Americans."

Time stresses that their choice for Person of the Year is not an endorsement of that person’s views or policies, but simply the person who "for better or for worse has most influenced world events" (previous choices include Hitler, Stalin, Pope John Paul II and Bill Gates).

Bloggers beg to differ…
But that still didn’t sit well with some of Russia’s blog community, who tend to be younger and more critical of the government. They point to the comments of Richard Stengel, Time’s managing editor, who said Putin was chosen for the "extraordinary feat of leadership in taking a country that was in chaos and bringing it stability."

One LiveJournal blog poster wrote: "I don't think that Russian government actually paid you for this. But it does look like this year you had a really hard time selecting worthy candidates."

For Putin himself, the choice is just another confirmation of what he already believes. After the chaos of the ’90s, Russia is back on its feet and back on the map.

MAIN PAGE

Email this EMAIL THIS

Comments

Several people choose to overlook the "for better or for worse" qualification for its person of the year.  Vladimir is not unlike Dubya or even Achmadinijad (who is more obvious with his outrageous statements) who all like world attention.  Vlad is like a child who is jumping up and down yelling pay attention to me as is the idiot from Iran and the other idiot in Caracas.  Dubya is the little kid who likes you until you disagree with him and then he takes his ball and goes home after giving you a good name calling.  ONe should respect Time for calling it as they see it because Vlad has the ability to start another cold war.

Ron Houston, TX (Sent Thursday, December 20, 2007 3:38 PM)

Are most of the people that write these comments stupid or just pretend to be?  Once again people "Person of the Year" is NOT an endorsement or a pat on the back!!!  Person of the Year is "for better or for worse has most influenced world events".  HITLER was chosen once and it wasn't because the 'Liberal Media' supported him. If you disagree with Time's choice fine but at least make it for a valid reason.    

Mary Bowles, Reading, Massachusetts (Sent Thursday, December 20, 2007 3:43 PM)

RE: Nancy Wilkins' question

Many Russian schoolchildren do study English, just like many schoolchildren around the world.  I wouldn't necessarily take that as a sign one way or the other.  (For what it's worth, many Soviet children studied English during the Communist era, too... Studying English is not a new development, as you seem to imply.)

Foreign language study is simply a recognition that certain languages are important.  It doesn't necessarily create peace.  Recall that during the Cold War, thousands of American schoolchildren studied Russian, and it wasn't because we were on good terms with the USSR -- many of those schoolchildren wanted to be spies or some other such career.  

So yes, Russian schoolchildren study English, but I wouldn't glean any assumptions from that one way or the other except that many schools across the world recognize the importance of English and teach it to their students.

emily, PA (Sent Thursday, December 20, 2007 3:45 PM)

EDB, you didn't state what the secret agenda of your country was. In case you haven't noticed, there are virtualy no countries in the world who are aligned to the USA's agenda, secret or otherwise. It's the USA that's out of step with the world, not vice versa.

Max Hart, Vancouver, BC (Sent Thursday, December 20, 2007 3:46 PM)

It's a disgrace to have Putin as man of the year!

Larry R. holmquist (Sent Thursday, December 20, 2007 3:49 PM)

The Putin fans need to be reminded that Adolph Hitler was also chosen.

Alan Walsh, Huntington beach, CA (Sent Thursday, December 20, 2007 3:52 PM)

H*LY CR*P!!!!  I would've bought Jolie, Gore, Chavez, or even Farve....but Putin?  And last year it was "YOU"!?  How many people actually agree with this choice?  In my opinion, this just shows how disconnected TIME magazine's writers/editors have become -- not that I ever cared before.  But choosing Putin is not only strange, it also kind of reeks of immoral political back-scratching...someone at TIME has an agenda.

dizzyguy (Sent Thursday, December 20, 2007 4:07 PM)

Time Magazine, and MSNBC alike, have been communist propaganda machinces for as long as I can remember, or in MSNBC's case for its entire existence.  So the choice of Putin does not surprize me in the least.

Clinton Goodman, Rochester NY (Sent Thursday, December 20, 2007 4:09 PM)

What scares me more than Putin are the comments made here by Americans both in the content and context.
So many of these comments lead me to believe that the authors of these comments are unable to grasp the fact that the Times' naming of Putin as Man of the Year is a mere acknowledgement of his impact ,be it bad or good. This being said how can it be ," Disgusting", or ," the libral media"..ect ect. Putin had a great impact and has changed the overall positioning of nations in the world, like it or not. No glorification of Putin or his policies is intended, merely acknowledgement of his impact all the illiterate destruction of the English language that I've seen here can win the debate over a point that does not exsist. My thanks to the folks that posted the intelligent comments it gives me hope.

huffy, San Francisco California (Sent Thursday, December 20, 2007 4:15 PM)

Hey, whatever happen to Yakov Smirnoff?

Gabe (Sent Thursday, December 20, 2007 4:20 PM)

Obviously, Putin is good for Russia and Russians
Russia is getting richer and thus is becoming a valuable member of the world community, supplying energy and providing market to other countries.
Those events, that are portrayed as Putin's guilts (murders of journalists and Litvinenko) - are products of cold war propaganda machine, as those events were increadibly damaging to Putin and didn't make any sense for him to do - say, killing spent KGB agent. Time's choice makes sense, though I personally would rather chose Al Gore.

Alex, Australia (Sent Thursday, December 20, 2007 4:23 PM)

Wow, so many good people in the world and you pick Putin; I've purchased my last copy of Time.

gdu (Sent Thursday, December 20, 2007 4:27 PM)

I DONT AGREE WITH TIME MAGAZINE NAMING PUTIN PERSON
OF THE YEAR. AND I HAVE MY REASONS. BUT UNLIKE LYNN
IN YOUNGSTOWN AND AJR I DONT BLAME PRES BUSH.
THEY ONLY SHOW THE ONLY MORONS IN THE US ARE VOTERS
LIKE THEMSELVES. AND THE SAD THING IS THE DONT GET IT
AND NEVER WILL. BUT THEY ENJOY THE FRUITS OF DEMOCRACY. AND THEY DONT KNOW HISTORY OBVIOUSLY.
GO FIGURE.

DICK BROWN EXCELSIOR, MN (Sent Thursday, December 20, 2007 4:41 PM)

What complete and utter nonsensical b.s. naming a tyrant like Vladimir Putin Time's man of the year. This man by all accounts has had numerous journalists and members of parliament murdered and likely had an apartment building in his own country filled with his own citizens bombed to raise support for their war in Chechnya.  Putin is a murderous brutal dictator and the people of Russia are to blind to see the monster sitting right in front of them steadily chipping away at their freedoms and sending the country back to it's old communist dictatorial ways.  Didn't the Russians learn there lesson the first time: Communism doesn't work.  Your idealogy is fundamentally flawed because it relies on the people in power to distribute wealth evenly amonst the masses (something the old Soviet cronies never did)and requires the government to stamp down on all forms of individual expression and personal freedom.  That's what tyrants do Concerned Citizen, they use fear and violence to strip the masses of their freedoms and hoarde the power for themselves.  Bush in no way fits that bill but Putin almost certainly does.  On the day President Bush creates the position of American Prime Minister and then declares himself to be the American Prime Minister who will serve indefinitely in that position, and creates powers for himself that will eclipse that of any and all future Presidents then you can truthfully call President Bush an egomaniacal tyrant. Has Bush had those who speak out against him murdered? No! The notion that democratic governments don't have the best interests of all their citizen's at heart is simply incorrect.  The fact is that every facet of our society is represented by at least one or members of our government. To say that the people of Iraq, Russia, or any other nation need tyrants like Saddam or Putin to set them straight is ludicrous left wing propaganda.

David, Shreveport, LA (Sent Thursday, December 20, 2007 4:53 PM)

As for those countries we've been invading the simple fact is that they are full of radical Islamic militants and terrorists that long ago declared war on the west (especially America and it's citizens) and have since killed thousands upon thousands of innocent people including the citizen's of their own countries of origin.  As to a lack of affordable health care I'll say this:  you totally fail to acknowledge the more than adequate state run hospitals (which in many cases have staff better trained and more competent than most private hospitals) that care for thousands of our nation's poor every single day.  It's true that the poor don't have access to the best medical advances money can buy but once that technology has been proven effective and is accepted by the medical community it becomes the norm, is no longer cost prohibitive, and becomes available to all.  Not to mention the fact that it's not the responsibility of a democratic government to provide health care for it's citizens or improve their standard of living.  Every citizen of this nation has the same rights, privileges, and opportunities as every other citizen it's just that many choose not to take advantage of those oppotunities particularly the opportunity for a good education (i.e. choosing not to go to college on state funded shcolarships and failing to take advantage federal education grants set up almost solely for minorities)and as such they wind up on welfare insisting that the government take care of and pay for all of their myriad problems and expenses. It's the responsibility of the individual to better their standard of living and consequently the quality of health care available to them through education. That said the standard of living even for the poorest of our nation is infinitely better than it is for for the poor of other nations such as Russia and the former Soviet Republics.

David, Shreveport, LA (Sent Thursday, December 20, 2007 4:58 PM)

Regardless of whether Time magazine says "Person of the Year is "for better or for worse [the person who] has most influenced world events" and that "it's not an endorsement or a pat on the back" the fact is that the title "person of the year" has a positive connotation associated with it and if the Kremlin controlled Russian media is to be believed is indeed an endorsemnt of Vladimir Putin and his policies. Vladimir Putin is a murderous dictator and as such naming him person of the year is ludicrous and in my opinion amoral.  Anyone who fails to acknowledge the kind of man Putin is or the connotation associated with the title "person of the year" is themself stupid!  Not to mention the fact that other than having reporters and parlaiment members murdered and therefore highlighting his countries democratic backsliding Vladimir Putin has done nothing to influence world events.

David, Shreveport, LA (Sent Thursday, December 20, 2007 5:20 PM)

Obviously, Aleksandra, the Russian psyche requires a dominating and enslaving presence in their government for them to accept said government.  Why would anyone, American or otherwise, not employed in a psychiatric profession want to understand a psyche so deeply troubled.  Who wants to be ruled by a murderous domineering despot?  Clearly the largely ignorant masses in Russia with little or nothing better to aspire to than the good old glory days of communism, dictatorship, and oppression.  If you really want to see an example of a people who are ignorant and inept Aleksandra perhaps you should look to your own people.  I think you'll find that ignorance, selfishness, and ineptitude are traits people all over the world possess not just some Americans and that these traits can generally be correlated to a persons level of education.  Your broad generalization of Americans as ignorant, selfish, and inept is both false and highly stereotypical to say the least.  

As to the gentelmen from Australia's argument that Putin couldn't have ordered those murders simply because they have made him unpopular and that it's a hoax by the cold war propaganda machine (which ended oh right about the time the cold war did) that is simply naive and ignorant.  Clearly world leaders can and do make unpopular decisions all the time.  Just because a leader made an unpopular decision (for example ordering the murder of an outspoken former KGB spy on foreign soil) doesn't make that decision any less real or somehow indicate that it can't be lain at the feet of the man responsible for that decision (i.e. Vladimir Putin).  Nor does it indicate that it was drummed up by some shadowy unfriendly propaganda machine (which in fact no longer exists).

And then of course there are those who claim that our own president Bush is a brutal tyrannical despot despite the fact that he has brought free elections to Iraq, elevated the status of women in Iraqi society, and ended a regime responsible for the torture and murder of tens of thousands of Iraqis.  These left wing liberal propagandists astronomically inflate the number of Iraqi civlians killed as a result of collateral damage, blame Bush and the American military for all the deaths caused by radical Islamic militias and terrorists, slander good Americans like Gen. Petraeus, and seek to undermine all the good that has been accomplished in Iraq simply because of their dislike for president Bush and his policies.

David, Shreveport, LA (Sent Thursday, December 20, 2007 7:00 PM)

Communism does work.  And the Russian people want it again.  What didn't work is the chaos that Boris Yeltsin brought to their country.  Russians LOVE President Putin!

And speaking of fear and power . . . what other picture can be used other than that of George W. Bush??

mrs. osipov, alabama (Sent Thursday, December 20, 2007 7:07 PM)

What I would like to know is this: What chosen process did TIME magazine use, to throw that left handed 98.7 mph curve ball into the faces of American readers? Putin,the "man OF THE YEAR"? ("man", that was no typo).The (man) OF THE YEAR has shoved his "DAD OF ALL BOMBS" into the faces of American families, his loyalty to the radical political players of Iran is obvious, his willingness to send several science teams into Iran to add more Siberian Beef into the IED's, re-instated Russia's bombers, NUKES in Iran?...well guess who, and the list goes on and on.

Putin,man OF THE YEAR? He has made his sons,Beavis and Butthead VERY proud! "Uhhhhh, uh...uh...uh, way ta go dad, uh...uh...uhhhh..."

Rick Gillespie, Orofino, Idaho (Sent Thursday, December 20, 2007 7:09 PM)

Putin has made Russia stronger and the majority of Russian people seem to like him. However I feel some of the claims they made in the article were essentially wrong.

Putin did not put Russia "back on the map." Even in the tumultuous '90s Russia was still "on the map" by any reasonable standard. It remained one of the world's largest nations with veto power at the UN and a huge nuclear stockpile.

Russia also remains generally poor and crime-ridden with low male life-expectancy. According to the UN its development from 2000-2005 improved, but it improved less than the following former Soviet Republics: Armenia, Belarus, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Tajikistan, and Ukraine. Even by other measures its revival has been no better than that of Eastern Europe and in many cases weaker than their's.  

In addition there are several nations or leaders that were diplomatically important in 2007. The choice was defensible, but not inarguable and some of what they used to back it were exaggerations.

Thomas Ruthven, Sandpoint, Idaho (Sent Thursday, December 20, 2007 7:30 PM)

Many people here speak about some kind of "limitations of freedom" in Russia. Are you guys actually know any of these limitations or you just playback what US media says (like a broken record). Could you give a concrete example of a personal fredom limitation that Putin added during his time?
I am from Russia and I don't know any... There were changes in the elections to foster bigger parties and to curb criminals from being elected as governors, but I don't know any "limitations" on my freedom that Putin added compared to what we had from before (90ties).
To be fair - Russia has some idiotic limitations inherited from USSR and those should be removed, but they existed before Putin and he has not added new ones...

So do any of you know what you are speaking about? Or is it just another misinformed western blah-blah-blah?

Nikolai, Chelyabinsk, Russia (Sent Thursday, December 20, 2007 8:48 PM)

I firmly believe that it is a grate choice. President Putin truly the Person of The Year.  Thanks.

Vladimir Bessonov (Sent Thursday, December 20, 2007 10:13 PM)

I subscribe to Time Mag.   I've been watching to see who has been voted on for this honor.  Is there a Communist Putin lover among those who make this selection?  I find it appalling that you would select Putin with so many great people right here who are so deserving of this honor. I think that TIME owes its readers and subscribers an apology.  It's not a wonder that you had a call from Russia overwhelmed by this choice.  We here in the United States are not overwhelmed, but rather, shocked that you would select him. janetb

janet berend (Sent Thursday, December 20, 2007 11:39 PM)

May be this is the only time that Time Magazine got it perfect.Putin is the real deal.

Teddy (Sent Friday, December 21, 2007 2:23 AM)



SEND A COMMENT

PLEASE READ: All comments must be approved before appearing in the thread; time and space constraints prevent all comments from appearing. We will only approve comments that are directly related to the blog, use appropriate language and are not attacking the comments of others.

Message (please, no HTML tags. Web addresses will be hyperlinked):

Your name, city and state (John Doe, Seattle, Wash.): 

 Your e-mail address (jdoe@msnbc.com):

Your website (it's okay if you don't have one):

Remember me? (We'll keep it private)

TRACKBACKS

Trackbacks are links to weblogs that reference this post. Like comments, trackbacks do not appear until approved by us. The trackback URL for this post is: http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/trackback.aspx?PostID=527778

ON LOCATION

More World Blog

Recent Posts:

Archives:

Categories:

Syndicate This Site

Add World Blog to your news reader:
live.com xml
myyahoo msn
bloglines newsgator
google

External Links

Interactive

Fight for Iraq
Learn more about the ethnic, religious and political power plays in and around Iraq during a briefing of the region led by NBC’s Richard Engel.

DAILY NIGHTLY

The Daily Nightly
The blog of "NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams" features a daily post from the broadcast's anchor and managing editor, as well as contributions from correspondents and producers around the world. Go behind-the-scenes and learn how news is gathered and produced for the broadcast.

MSNBC Weblogs