Medvedev Beats Putin In the Press

By The Moscow Times

Dec. 29, 2009

President Dmitry Medvedev has topped a list of the most-mentioned personalities in the Russian media in 2009 with 122,871 references, Interfax reported Monday.

This result was up from last year’s figure of 100,264, according to a news analysis system created by Interfax.

Medvedev outranked Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who was mentioned in Moscow and regional media a total of 93,182 times, compared with 94,906 in 2008.

Both politicians also topped the list of most-mentioned personalities for the week ending Dec. 27, with 3,752 references to Medvedev and 2,324 to Putin.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko was the most-mentioned foreign politician with 47,217 references, far ahead of No. 2 U.S. President Barack Obama with 39,628.

Obama was only mentioned in the Russian media 6,972 times in 2008.

Interfax scanned about 1,600 media outlets in Moscow and other regions, including newswires, television, radio, newspapers and Internet resources, for the report.

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