Russia under Mr. Putin is not the U.S. The Kremlin controls the media, imposes censorship, and deprives the Russian people of their democratic rights. We have a moral obligation at least to try to help the Russians to break this undemocratic hold on free speech, employing reasonable, legal and peaceful means. You might say that the Russians are fond of Mr. Putin, and many are, but he controls the mass media, doesn’t he?

U.S. TV networks would carry a speech by the Russian president live and in full if it were important enough. It seems to me that Obama’s speech was fairly important as he was trying to put an end to the Cold War mentality in both countries. Let’s assume for a moment that Mr. Medvedev would be visiting the U.S. and we in the media became aware that he wants to give a speech in which he would talk about an assault on the freedom of expression by the President of the United States. Let’s also asumme that the the U.S. President has already taken control of most of the TV networks. Is it possible that journalists working for the remaining few independent networks would want to carry President Medvedev’s speech live? Their bosses might not if they thought that it could lead to their networks being taken over by the White House, but more courages ones would. This is just an example that may prove why under such circumstances a U.S. TV network might want to carry Mr. Medvedev’s speech live.

All of this goes back to my original point that you cannot compare the media situation in the U.S. and in Russia and assume that the same rules apply to both.