Remember the Russian broadcaster we told you of who flipped the bird when she mentioned Obama’s name in a live television broadcast?
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She’s been pulled off the air.
REN TV, a privately owned channel controlled by associates of Vladimir Putin, the prime minister, said on Thursday it had decided to take her off air calling her actions “unacceptable” and “unprofessional”.
The channel, which is broadcast to 120 million people, claimed the gesture was intended for her colleagues in the studio rather than for President Obama.
“On 14 November during the ‘News 24’ programme the presenter Limanova made an unacceptable gesture that was a synonym for an offensive expression,” it said in a statement.
The backstory seems a bit more believable.
Sources close to the channel had previously tried to defuse the row by claiming that the newsreader had believed she was off camera at the time and merely providing a voice-over for a report. She had raised her middle finger as a jokey retort to studio technicians who had been trying to put her off her stride, they said.
It seemed as though she genuinely did not realize that she was on camera as she made no eye contact and read from a script. While some celebrated this as a one gun Ruskie salute, I think the reality is far less newsworthy.
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