Following my recent visit to Aceh in Indonesia, this piece in today’s Washington Post is particularly interesting (though highlights the seeming inability of the American corporate media to see the world in anything other than what benefits the US): In many ways, Indonesia — a nation of 240 million people scattered across 17,000 islands —…
Showing all posts tagged Iraq
War reporting should only have one victim
My friend Mike Otterman, author and New York based human rights consultant, writes about the fallacy of “objectivity” when talking about war: In my view, journalism cannot be purely objective in any area—education, healthcare, crime, education–so why should war be any different? The fog of war exacerbates the inherent problems of objective journalism, i.e. presenting…
What, reporters aren’t just spokespeople for the US military?
Books by American journalists about Iraq that avoid discussing the Iraqis themselves. That’s a real achievement.
Reporters are whores for war (repeat after me)
Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting remind us that the corporate media has remembered nothing from the Iraq debacle; their job is to amplify those in power: There have been recent discussions (e.g., New York Times, 9/29/09) about whether the press is doing a better job covering allegations about Iran’s nuclear program than they did during…
”˜Anti-Zionist’ Jew: author of ”˜My Israel Question’ heads for Bali
The following article by Katrin Figge is published today in one of Indonesia’s largest English newspapers, The Jakarta Globe: For a person who gets hate mail and death threats on a regular basis, Antony Loewenstein remains surprisingly cheerful. The Jewish-Australian journalist, activist, blogger and author, who is based in Sydney, has stirred up plenty of…
When America liked the brutal Iranians
How inconvenient and reminiscent of Washington’s support for Saddam: For all the recent uproar over Iran’s nuclear program, little attention has been paid to the fact that the country which first provided Tehran with nuclear equipment was the United States. In 1967, under the “Atoms for Peace” program launched by President Eisenhower, the US sold…
Reporters might like to consider the Arab point of view
The Australian Committee for Truth in the Middle East, a group with a fine pedigree, offers some advice to journalists covering the Middle East: 1. In Gaza and the West Bank Hamas won popular support – enough to win an election generally regarded in the West as fair (except for the result, of course) –…
Removing “normality” from the Middle East
Why boycott, divest and sanction Israel? The Electronic Intifada provides some answers: …Veterans of the South Africa anti-apartheid campaign who led a successful boycott have also stressed the need to stand with indigenous communities. Boycott is a move to heed the voice of an oppressed group and follow its lead. The idea is that there…
How attractive is conflict to the New York Times?
The New York Times was intimately involved in selling the case for war against Iraq. Six years on, with Iran in the cross-hairs, little has changed. Corporate and complicit media at its worst.
Where the lessons of Iraq are ignored over Iran
The growing hysteria over Iran is deafening (details here, here,… here and here.). Watch this segment on the “liberal” MSNBC and see how the American media elite (including Arianna Huffington, just back from a little trip to Israel) are almost gagging to bomb the Islamic Republic. Salon’s Glenn Greenwald is a notable voice of reason: