re: The Media
My first source, which is a french magazine (I don't think it's on the internet and it's useless to post anything in another language than english, here) was comparing Rowe with Alistair Campbell and the Russian one.
Nowadays, it's not the politicians ideas that are promoted, but tricks are used to undermine the other side (insinuating he's gay or he's a paedophile or whatever).
It's even common on HZ to do that.
Raoul