Dmitry Medvedev

Good Morning America's George Stephanopoulos reported live from Russia on Monday and Tuesday and, despite devoting 32 minutes to interviewing the country's President and other officials, never once brought up the hundreds of journalists who have been died mysteriously in the country over the last 17 years.

On Monday, Stephanopoulos did challenge President Dmitry Medvedev on Iran, sanctions and other topics. But, on Tuesday, he conducted a softball interview, touting, "As a teenager, Medvedev saved for months to buy Pink Floyd's The Wall. You have a deep love of heavy metal. Where did that come from?"

He also parroted White House spin about Medvedev and Barack Obama: "...You can tell from my interviews with the two presidents that Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev like each other a lot. That may be because they're a lot alike."

Good Morning America's George Stephanopoulos on Monday couldn't help but laugh at Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's obvious joke about George W. Bush. Stephanopoulos was in Russia to cover the signing on of a nuclear arms reduction treaty and offered this softball to Medvedev: "What do you make of Barack Obama, the man?"

The Russian President joked, "He's a very comfortable partner. It's very interesting to be with him. The most important thing that distinguishes him from many other people, I won't name anyone by name, he's a thinker. He thinks when he speaks." Not holding back, the former Democratic operative turned journalist laughed.

He then quipped, "You had somebody in your mind, I think." Medvedev added, "Obviously, I do have someone on my mind. I don't want to offend anyone."

During Tuesday night’s presidential debate, NBC’s Tim Russert tried to test the Democratic candidates’ basic knowledge of foreign policy, asking what they knew about the man who will almost certainly be elected president of Russia in Sunday’s elections. After Hillary Clinton gave a general answer that kept referring to “Putin’s handpicked successor,” Russert pounced: “Do you know his name?”

But if the fact that Dmitry Medvedev will assume the Russian presidency is actually important, Russert and his co-moderator, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams, have utterly ignored it as journalists. A Nexis search shows just one reference to Medvedev on NBC, an April 14, 2007 story about Russia’s giant energy company, Gazprom, of which Medvedev was chairman of the board. (The story aired on a weekend, when Lester Holt, not Brian Williams, was in the anchor chair.)