Condi confrontational on Kyrgyzstan? Au contraire!

Trolling around for news of breaking Kyrgyzstan stories I saw this banner ad for RIA Novosti featuring a hostile-looking Condi Rice on Lenta.ru:



The text of the ad reads, "Rice: the events in Kirgiziia [that's how many Russians still refer to Kyrgyzstan] 'are just the beginning'"

This is a great example of how a quotation taken out of context can change the speaker's meaning entirely. In the story to which this ad refers, Rice talks about how what's currently happening in Kyrgyzstan is just the beginning of the process in that country, and that revolutionary change takes more than a day to effect.

Fortunately, we can check RIA's version of her remarks against an English-language account provided by the Associated Press:

"It doesn't happen on Day 1," Rice said. "This is a process that's just beginning. We know where we want to go." [...]

"If we can take events on the ground ... encourage the various parties in Kyrgyzstan to move into a process that will then lead to the election of a government and move this process of democracy forward, it will have been a very good thing," Rice said [...]

"Our desire is for a process that will lead to a stable outcome in which elections can be held and where this can move forward," Rice said. "Obviously, everyone should put aside violence. There is no place for violence in a process of this kind."

She said nothing directly or implicitly about the potential "domino effect" of the several recent revolutions in former Soviet nations which has been mentioned by some commentators as cause for Putin to feel like he's on the hot seat. The full text of the RIA article bears this out, but the banner ad does not.

The selective quoting used to create the sound bite for the banner ad takes Rice's measured, balanced statement (she is quoted extensively in the article and says nothing inflammatory at any point) and transforms it into a threat to stability into the former Soviet space, side by side with a photo designed to make Rice herself look threatening.

I know that RIA has to compete with tabloids for readers on the internet, but it's hard to imagine a western wire service stooping to such tactics to drive up traffic on their website. This bothers me because such misrepresentations, repeated frequently enough, can have an impact on the average internet-surfing Russian's opinion.