G96

The Economist Daily Chart

February 28th, 2008

(pdf scan)

No contest

SINCE being picked by Vladimir Putin as his successor, Dmitry Medvedev has been lavished with media attention. In the run-up to the presidential election on Sunday March 2nd, Mr Medvedev has been mentioned over six times more often than his three rivals in 1,000 different new sources, according to figures from SCAN, a media database owned by Interfax. Mr Medvedev's high profile could be attributed partly to his job as chairman of the state-owned gas monopoly, Gazprom. And handily, Gazprom is a major stakeholder in some of Russia's biggest media sources, including the only terrestrial television channel.