But it wasn’t the “from friend to foe” kind of transformation as you might have thought given all the hostile rhetoric voiced by American and European officials. On the contrary, despite the anti-Russian hype and animosity promoted by Western media, Putin’s image of a strong and responsible politician has only been consolidated abroad. But the media campaign launched against Russia and its leader in the US media was so aggressive that it alarmed even fellow Americans.
Stephen Cohen, a professor emeritus at Princeton and NYU, wrote an whole article in the Nation magazine called Distorting Russia. The author condemned the “demonization” of Putin in the domestic news coverage, claiming that it has gotten even worse than during the Cold War era.
“The degradation of mainstream American press coverage of Russia, a country still vital to US national security, has been under way for many years. If the recent tsunami of shamefully unprofessional and politically inflammatory articles in leading newspapers and magazines—particularly about the Sochi Olympics, Ukraine and, unfailingly, President Vladimir Putin—is an indication, this media malpractice is now pervasive and the new norm”.
The Oordinary Americans have also felt that their government and media have gone a straw too far in their efforts to tar Putin’s image. In fact, the US citizens believe that the Russian president is a stronger leader than Obama, according to the an opinion poll conducted by the British company YouGov together with the Economist magazine in March. Over 33% of Americans recognized Putin’s political forces as very strong, and 45% as somewhat strong.
These are the results figures that the US president, whose ratings have reached a record low in 2014, could only wish for, says Stephen Lendman, Chicago-based radio host and author.
“I think on the one hand, they may feel that way comparing the two presidents. On the other hand, and I’ve written volumes on this, the US media is absolutely non-stop malicious ambushing Russia, ambushing Vladimir Putin, ambushing anything related to Russian governance, especially in relation to Ukraine and Crimea”.
Surprisingly, it was fashion designers, who first responded to the anti-Russian media campaign. T-shirts with images of Vladimir Putin became a worldwide bestseller in 2014. In October a Manhattan designer Julius Kasinskis opened a pop-up store where he sells the Peacemaker collection of tees with images of the Russian president. The designer told journalists his aim was to show a non-mainstream attitude towards Putin – and his counterbalancing the Western representation. Julius has associates in Russia too.
Moscow designer Alexander Konasov created the Patriot collection of T-shirts and sweatshirts with images like “Putin is my hero” that have been selling like hotcakes. Another brand, Anyavanya, has sold thousands of Putin prints on clothes, causing long lines at Moscow's historic GUM department store. International celebrities such as Mickey Rourke and Steven Segal were among their customers. So while Western politicians and journalists have put their energy into tainting the image of Russia'sn president, 2014 turned out be quite a successful year for Vladimir Putin.
