Re-defining "news".

...is an event considered "news" if it was both certain and obvious?

The power players in Russia are having a fun time engineering news given their soviet experience.

Prime Minister Putin has accepted Dmitry Medvedev’s proposal for him to run for the presidency in 2012, made at the convention of the United Russia party in Moscow. Putin also put forward Medvedev to lead the party’s election list.
“I consider it to be the right move for the congress to support party’s leader Vladimir Putin as a presidential candidate,” announced the Russian president, talking of the presidential elections, which have been set for March 2012.
Vladimir Putin, who is the leader of the United Russia Party, addressing the delegates at the gathering, in his turn, has called on the party to put Dmitry Medvedev at the top of the list of candidates at the forthcoming parliamentary elections in December 2011.