Foreign Policy did not name Putin the most influential politician

The rating of the influence of world leaders from Foreign Policy, which was vigorously reported by the Russian media on January 4 (in connection with Vladimir Putin’s second place in it), turned out to be a canard. In fact, Putin was dubbed “the most influential person on the planet” not by the editors of Foreign Policy, but only by one of its bloggers, Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia Group think tank, who posted his informal survey of experts on the magazine’s website.

The ITAR-TASS agency was the first to publish an article that Vladimir Putin “was named by the American magazine Foreign Policy as the most influential political, business and public figure on the planet” (January 4 at 00:46). The next issue of the publication, which published a rating of individuals who determine the path of development of the modern world, went on sale on January 4, the agency reported and added that “the magazine decided to leave the first line of the rating empty, since the scope of the geopolitical and economic problems of the world is so great that one person cannot cope with them single-handedly.”

Two and a half hours later, the RIA Novosti agency picked up the topic. The agency's website publishedan article with the headline: "Putin has become the most influential person in the world according to Foreign Policy." Neither ITAR-TASS nor RIA Novosti provided a link to the original source. By 3:54 a message appears on Lenta.ru’s Twitter account: “Foreign Policy put Putin in second place on the list of the most influential people in the world... And who is in first? Nobody!”

By the afternoon, this topic had already been picked up by many Russian media, including the most authoritative ones (PublicPost was no exception). The scheme was simple - in news feeds they reprinted Russian agent reports or notes from other Russian media - “Foreign Policy magazine named Putin the most influential politician on the planet” (no one referred to the original source). RIA Novosti, meanwhile, continued to publish materials such as “Experts explained why Putin became the leader in the influence rating ,” “Political scientists named the reasons for Putin’s leadership in the Foreign Policy rating ,” and “ Russians discuss Putin’s leadership in the influence rating on Twitter .” The latest article indicates that the hashtags “#PutinGod” and “Foreign Policy” were included in Russian Twitter trends by 18:30 Moscow time.

Ex-press secretary Kristina Potupchik dedicated a post to this news in her LiveJournal : “Of course, this is a postcard to all the old oppositionists. Moreover, even Putin’s second place in this ranking is an absolute and unconditional victory, because if you didn’t read the news carefully , I repeat - NO ONE is in first place. And if someone does not agree, you can always go to France and scold Putin from there, fortunately, with the change of Depardieu’s citizenship, there is one vacant position there. I’m looking forward to texts exposing the ins and outs of the rating and bringing Foreign Policy to the forefront. pure water. The censorship of the damned bloody regime has reached out! Putin is so influential that he even influenced his own rating. But in general, when a person gets into the first places of all conceivable ratings of coolness for many years in a row, this is probably a reason to think.”

The Foreign Policy rating was exposed on the Ekho Moskvy website on the evening of January 4. Several bloggers and journalists decided to read the original source and discovered that it was not the magazine that compiled this list, but its blogger, Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia Group research center. In a blog dated January 2 , Bremmer said he decided to rank the most powerful politicians of 2012 himself and conducted an informal survey of experts.

That is, Putin ranks second in power (precisely “power”, not “influence”) in blogger Bremmer’s personal rating; this has nothing to do with the editorial opinion of Foreign Policy magazine.

The author of Foreign Policy, Joshua Keating, seeing what a wave of discussion the incorrect interpretation of the blog caused, published the article " Ian Bremmer, Vladimir Putin, and the Russian media looking glass ." Keating explains that the magazine’s editors have nothing to do with this rating, that this rating will not be published in any printed version, and adds that the Russian press has forgotten to point out that being a leader on that Bremmer list is not a compliment for Putin. “The high assessment given by Bremmer is not entirely flattering,” writes the author of the article. And he quotes an excerpt from Bremmer’s work: “In the Russian system, centered around one person, it (Putin - editor’s note) is still the one who matters. He is no longer as popular as before, and his country does not have the same influence or weight, as in Soviet times, but no one else on the planet has been able to consolidate more power in his country and region than Putin."

Apparently, the New Year holidays played a cruel joke on the Russian media, which led to a decrease in the quality of information verification. However, the rating of the expert community is also a rating that can be taken or not taken into account.