As I was looking through various news stories regarding Russia, I noticed that almost all of them are about something negative such as military activity or potential threats against the United States. I think this goes back to a blog post I had the other week about the portrayal of Russians in American films. Ranging from economic protests to the Kremlin encroaching on new spheres of influence, the media coverage of Russia only seems to further push Russians away from the western countries.

I’m not saying that the Russians are not guilty of many if not all of these things; however, I think it is important to show both sides of a civilization, rather than just the politics that go against the United States. We see this problem not only with Russia but with the Middle East as well. Media coverage of the war on terror has led to a vast amount of negative press regarding Muslims and middle-easterners in general. This has in turn caused a very negative public opinion of these groups. The same thing happened during Soviet times and will continue as long as the people condone this kind of media.

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/russia/index.html

If you just look at the New York Times almost all of the stories featured are negative in some way or another. Because this is one of the biggest sources of news in the United States, many people are influenced by this, thus making the problem worse.