In Russia, state TV and the Internet tell a tale of two protests

The Internet is awash with images and videos of police hauling people off across the country and, in at least one case, of a protester being punched.

MOSCOW: Some of the biggest anti-Kremlin protests in years swept across Russia on Monday with over 1,000 people detained by the police ahead of a presidential election next year. But anyone relying on state TV would have concluded they were a non-event.

Vremya, state TV's flagship evening news show, relegated news of the protests to item nine of 10, and, in a report lasting around 30 seconds, said less than 2,000 people had shown up in Moscow. Some 150 people had been detained for disobeying the police elsewhere in the city, it said.