The first time I remember ever watching the news and getting really really excited about it was watching the 2000 election results. I was ten. Then in middle school and high school I would come home and watch the BBC world news report on PBS at 4 every day, sometimes watch CNN for updates and listen to NPR a lot while driving. Highlights included 9/11, the big Asian tsunami, also watching Iraq fall (I think I stopped following shortly after the battle of Fallujah because the media stopped covering it very coherently, or maybe the war stopped being understandable), and the big Lebanon thing in 2006. I would occasionally scan the headlines on my way to the back of the paper for the crossword puzzle. Also, would watch the O'Reilly factor and CNN headlines at the gym for entertainment. Coincidentally, my favorite thing to listen to while running is not peppy music but podcasts of interesting news and analysis. Not that obsessive, you say?
Well, then this past fall I started reading Reuters news for my INTL 240 class. It is my homepage to this day, just because they are fast to post breaking news and I'm used to their layout, not because I particularly like their reporting. Proof that I'm a news fiend: I have picky reporting preferences. Last term I pretty much put in about 20 minutes a day reading the stories that Reuters chose to makes headlines, anything about Nigeria (my focus country), paying particular attention to the international news, not really reading much of the economics or domestic politics, except to see who was running for president and how badly our economy sucks.
It has all changed. This term, as I have said before, I am in 3 international studies classes, and all three require me to daily read a newspaper like the NY Times or something. Also, they all have different emphasis for news quizzes. Intl 260 focuses more on the economy and capitalism and the markets, which I find at best mildly interesting and at worst disgusting. Intro 199 talks a lot about humanitarian crises and the state of the world today, but is really kind of ADD about it, and Negotiation 199 is all about current events, particularly Iraq, Iran, North Korea, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. So, add to these things that fact that my chance to vote in my very first presidential election is coming up and I want my candidate on the ballot (hint: its not Hillary) and there is quite a lot of news to be read.
Also, watched. I think its easy to rely on the internet for everything, but the other day I read about five different articles about Bush's talks with Palestinian authority Mahmoud Abbas, and saw some quotes about things he said, and then I watched the entire press conference on C-span, and let me tell you, its is important to get that context and complete answer, and its hard to do that in a news article because you can't just publish the entire text of what was said; nobody would read it. Unfortunately, C-span is not a reliable option for me because I don't have a TV and I can't always convince the people in the lounge to turn off family guy and watch c-span...
This is all background to what I really wanted to talk about : Al Jazeera Satellite news and the Arab world in general. So, besides reading a greater volume of news in general, I started also reading the New York Times, skimming the LA Times, reading the Daily Emerald (Eugene/ campus news- the best part is the letters), Africa News.com (I have a vested interest in the stability of Kenya and the region), and listening to more NPR. Then the other day in Intro to INTL we watched "Control Room" which is a documentary about Al Jazeera which somebody had the presence of mind to make during the start of the whole Iraq thing. It's fascinating and everybody should watch it. Now, I'm educated enough to know that a documentary about media portrayal not being objective is also probably not objective, but if its purpose was for me to consider non-American news sources and understand what the millions of Arabs are seeing on the news, then they succeeded.
The documentary was primarily talking about the early stages of the Iraq war and how the US hates Al Jazeera. Its also fascinating how most of the governments in the Middle East also hate them for being too liberal and criticizing extremists and their regimes...Basically, if America and the Arab world agree on not liking something, its worth looking into. So I've been reading Al Jazeera. I liked it right off the bat because they publish a lot more Africa news and news from places that most Americans never think about, and not just the Arab world, and they have on the homepage the international news sorted by region, which is very convenient. I get annoyed by Reuters because the economics and election '08 stuff, most of which is really repetitive, get almost all of the front page space. I don't want to make it (Al Jazeera) my homepage though, because I'm still rather wary of buying into the whole thing and how that might look to other people (just plain weird)...but I always open another page and compare the Reuters and Al Jazeera articles.
Okay, so now we get to the actual reason I started blogging (besides having nothing better to do). So today Israelis killed 17 or 18 Palestinians, depending on which version you read (NYT still says 16, they don't update very often, which is why I never only read them). This is a big deal in light of Bush's recent visit to Israel and setting a time table on peace negotiations. So I first saw this article with a huge picture of dead bodies on Al Jazeera and I wondered why I hadn't seen it on Reuters. Its because on Reuters it was most of the way down the page, with no picture, in a list of other international news along with random stuff about Kenya, Italy, Columbia, and Poland. (Note: between the time I first saw the articles and when I got back from class to actually read them Reuters updated the article from 16 casualties to 18 and Al Jazeera stayed with 17, so I give them props for updating).
Its fascinating to compare the actual articles. The title of Al Jazeera's is "Abbas: Israeli raid 'a massacre'" and the Reuters' is "Israeli forces kill 18 Palestinians in Gaza". Right away you know AJ's opinion, but R always titles with the plain facts. I could probably take it line by line and describe the differences but I'll try to resist. You should go read the articles. Now. So the openings of both articles use a quote from Abbas; Reuters says he calls it "A slap in the face" to Bush and his peace process (connecting it from the start to American interests) and Al Jazeera quotes "Its a massacre" which incites anger and sadness over the event. Its just amazing how different these two articles are. I mean, my two major news sources almost always have a different take on issues but this is just glaringly obvious.
I promise I wont compare it line by line, but wow. One of the interesting things is not only the language and the order in which they describe the events, but also what each chooses to put in and leave out, and what order they report. Of course, a lot of people don't read the full article, so you put the most important stuff at the beginning. The Reuters article starts off talking about and Ecuadorian farmer working on an Israeli farm was murdered by Hamas, and how they had started it by firing rockets at Israel on Tuesday, and Israel's response was "we are left without a choice but to answer and stop it". By total contrast Al Jazeera randomly tosses the bit about the farmer at the very end, makes no mention of the missiles fired at Israel and explains the action as "What is clear is that there is an Israeli plot to destroy the whole region. President Bush gave the green light to such aggression and such terrorism." Israel said they were engaging in an operation "against terror threats". <--note the quotation marks. The most chilling part though is when the guy whose sons were killed says "We will retaliate in the way they understand."
Usually I appreciate how Al Jazeera reports on events with an emphasis on the personal human toll of violence, but there really can be no neutrality when reporting about Israel. The whole conflict is just so intractable...it truly boggles the mind.
I guess in conclusion I want to encourage people to consider the source of news and to read broadly as well as deeply. I read Al Jazeera regularly, but I pity those people who rely solely on their reporting, or solely on Reuters or BBC. The great quote from "Control Room": "Everyone who works with BBC ends up working for Al Jazeera." Veeeery interesting.
Okay, I'm done.
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