When the watchdogs are part of the problem
Sat Jul 22, 2006 at 07:01:03 AM PDT
I often listen to "On the Media" on NPR, even though it usually feels like one is settling for wrist slapping when a good thrashing is in order. This morning they looked at coverage of the war in the Middle East. It reminded me of whites who were trying to be good sports about "Negroes" (as in "Some of my best friends are...') in the mid-twentieth century but clearly thought of them as some kind of easily led, childlike species.
Brook interviewed an ABC reporter about the Hezbollah-backed television station. Her main criticism could have been done about the American media as a whole in spades. Patriotic shots of soldiers to swelling music? Exactly which of our news services doesn't do this? This news was delivered in a burst of laughter, in which Brook joined. You'd have thought they were discussing some dumb old boyfriend.
The sound of Brook and the woman reporter from that paragon of news integrity and balance, ABC, yukking it up about this factoid was especially grating in light of the fact that over 300 Lebanese civilians are dead, 1,000 wounded, and a third of them are children. Oh, yeah, and some Israeli civilians and soldiers are dead too, now that Israeli has gone from 0 to 60 and a full-scale war.
The ABC reporter did say dismissively that they were very good on the facts. But she made even Nasrallah's honesty and Hezbollahian factual accuracy into something slightly suspect--as if their whole power rests with their integrity (God forbid) and they'd have no leg to stand on if they weren't honest, so that's why they're honest, otherwise, well...you know those wily Arabs--they'd be honest just to trick us into thinking their way!
The overall tone was nauseating--the viewing of Lebanese and other Arabs through a lens as if they're some slightly more awkward and gullible species, less savvy and intelligent than the great ABC and NPR reporter. The instant granting of some kind of innate morality to the Israeli press, for its "grim" acquiescence with what "has to be done." (It hurts me more than it hurts you...)
For contrast with the jingoistic response of the Lebanese media, let's turn to the front page of our paper of record, the New York Times, which had three large pictures dead center at the top: a ruined city after bombing; a body bag, awaiting transport in safer times; and a menacing Palestinian soldier with headscarf--excuse me, terrorist. (Israel has the soldiers, the others are terrorists, I keep forgetting. Maybe if they can land multibillion dollar US aid and fighting equipment and decent uniforms, we'll get to call them soldiers someday.) If it weren't for the terrorist, maybe all those people wouldn't be dead and their cities in ruins. If only people would beHAVE...
According to Hezbollah, 2 soldiers were kidnapped in order to pressure Israel into a prisoner exchange, and now a country lies in ruins. This is "you better not make Daddy mad or you'll be sorry" of the highest order. The 2 soldiers were not kidnapped out of the blue--Israel and Hizbollah have been at war and skirmishing for 20 years. But Daddy's sick and tired of having to come up those stairs and now he's going to teach you kids a lesson...
Of course, it's entirely possible that the whole thing was masterminded by Iran and Syria, who knew the Israelis wouldn't be able to resist a grotesque response. Israel can't be expeected to control herself--she's helpless in the face of such provocation. So you can't hold her accountable for the scale of her actions. She's like we are. Bomb 2 towers = lay waste 2 countries. Kidnap 2 soldiers = destroy Lebanon.
I wish someone would also tell Bob Schaeffer to quit using that moronic phrase "the Arab Street." If someone used the phrase "the Jewish Street" you'd think they were paranoid and anti-Semitic. When Bob uses that phrase to cover a third of the planet, it's a little racist and naive. Gee, Bob. They're just like us! They have universities and think all sorts of things. As you yourself mentioned, the Saudis came out against Hezbollah's action. But they live in the other Arab Street I guess.
Our House of Representatives just passed a resolution supporting Israel's right to "defend" itself by a vote of 400 to 8. Our domestic security agency, the FBI, is supposedly looking into Hezbollah (making those who say Israel is now our 51st state seem not quite so paranoid...). The Bush administration is rushing a delivery of precision-guided bombs to Israel. I wish "On the Media" tried to look a little closer at the real media story in this fight--how the victims are portrayed as responsible for the destruction of their country and how pervasive is the routine bias against Muslims and Arabs in our wonderful press ever since the moronic "War on Terror" began.
And I wish that when civilians lie dead in the streets and the wounded lie trapped in rubble, the hilarity over Lebanese media chuckleheads could be kept to a minimum.
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