Al Jazeera Vs. the BBC’s Faltering Global Voice

The BBC claim they aim to continue being the world's best known and most trusted provider of high quality impartial and editorially independent international news. But considering the alternatives to BBCWS is that enough?

By Elliot Adams

As much as I like to claim I hate blogging, it does provide an alternative outlet for my irritation to that of repeatedly bitching to my girlfriend about the same topics untill my fickle humming-birdesque mind flutters off to extract chagrin-necter from a new source. Of late she has been putting up with my gripes about presumptions old people, the borderline-corruption of the SNP and, most frequently, the painful cuts to the BBC World Service.

World Service is facing severe reduction of non-news programming, losing radio broadcasting in seven languages, stopping service fully in five further languages, closing hundreds of posts, cutting airtime down across the board and through all this reducing its audience by a conservatively predicted 30 million.

I have posted before praising the work the BBC World Service do globally – specifically the World Service Trust which provides media infrastructure as a form of international aid – so it isn’t surprising that I consider these cuts a loss. But my concern goes further than this, weakening the World Service at this time poses a threat to democracy and the international free press. For how and why, we should look to the small Gulf state of Qatar.

Qatar is the home of ever-controversial news broadcaster Al Jazeera, the strongest contender of a number of state-funded broadcasters ready to fight for a monopoly in territory World Service is being forced to withdraw from.

It’s not that I’m taking a dig at Al Jazeera here, there is much the fledgling broadcaster should be commended for.

They have been refreshingly progressive, as with their creative commons release of photographs and video footage(free to publish as long as you attribute it correctly) or their social media experiment The Stream, which, instead of reporting, merely use a selection of extracts from twitter, YouTube, Facebook and other social networking sites – it has predictably been an abject failure, but the point is they tried to stir things up technologically.

Likewise they stir things up politically, they haven’t just been reporting recent

As BBC Worldwide is closing its Serbian radio service, Al Jazeera is stepping in with 'Al Jazeera Balkans'.

pro-democracy uprisings, they have been catalysing them and one can’t help but feel sympathy for their plight in facing the threats and attacks of government forces in Cairo. As they did before in Iraq, being bombed by both the US airforce and by factions loyal to Saddam. Yet in both situations they provided fast on-the-ground coverage where others could not.

But this is Al Jazeera English, a slick and professional media operation – shaped in its early days by BBC staff and now itself staffed by many former employees of the BBC and it’s counterparts from Australia, the USA, Canada and the rest of the English-speaking world. It has no significant bias and covers the needs of a large international news agenda. But Al Jazeera Arabic is a different story. Long anti-western rants commonly pass without evidence or counter argument, there is a suggestion that its sympathies lie wholly with Islamist extremism as an ideology and its bias becomes disturbingly clear on a number of issues, especially on Israel and the occupied territories.

for example, watch this Al Jazeera English coverage of Lebanese man Samir Kuntar’s release from the prison term he served for remorselessly murdering a four-year-old Israeli girl – caving her skull in on the ground with his rifle butt. The coverage uses journalistic distance to observe and record the positive welcome he receives on release.

Now compare this footage from Al Jazeera‘s normal service, where the sycophantic interviewer tells us beloved “brother Samir” “deserves more than this” at the party Al Jazeera throws for Kuntar – complete with fireworks and a personalised cake.

This fork-tongued coverage is the least of it though, more troubling is when Al Jazeera walks in hand with the will of Qatar’s absolute monarchy. For example Al Jazeera has enthusiastically embraced pro-democracy movements in Yemen, Egypt, Syria and Libya, but has strangely been downplaying events in Bahrain. This point is subjective and just my opinion, but it is one shared by Al Jazeera’s Beirut bureau chief who resigned on that same opinion. The Emir of Qatar, like Al Jazeera supports change in Libya, Egypt, Yemen and Syria – but not in neighbouring Bahrain, where he has sent Qatari troops to quiet the revolt.

Al Jazeera allows Qatar to exert cultural influence on a scale previously unavailable to it through military or economical means, which perhaps explains the Emir’s astronomically great investment in a cutting-edge communications satellite to extend Al Jazeera’s reach deeper into Africa and Central-Asia.

The Emir of Qatar isn’t the only one to be trying to exert international power through the opinion-shaping power of international state-funded broadcasting. Iran has its Press TV, President Putin has The Voice of Russia(previously Radio Moscow) now broadcasting in 38 languages, and on television Putin’s media advisor Mikhail Lesin created Russia Today – broadcasting in English, Spanish and Arabic to echo Putin’s interests and prejudices. Whereas President Hu Jin-tao of the People’s Republic of China has already committed billions to the “fierce struggle in the domain of [international] news and opinion.” Lobbyists are getting in on he fight too, with billionaire Alex Mashkevich announcing what has been dubbed the ‘Jewish Al Jazeera’ to broadcast Pro-Israel opinion internationally.

I know that it may seem like an expensive extravagance to be providing news and other broadcasting around the world. But being selfish for a moment, I honestly don’t think that we can afford to leave large parts of the world with their international news dominated by propaganda outlets, denied impartial and honest news, to be aggressively lectured everyday by powers who’s aims and values are so directly opposed to that of the free society. I do not agree with this notion (that Clinton, Putin and Hu Jin-tao suggest) of a global war for influence in the airwaves, if BBC World Service(whether you believe they are truly impartial or not) is there to insure that there is more than one voice, more than one account, more than one truth – then it limits the options of those who would seek a monopoly for their voice, they must debate, they must engage with democracy and then their war is already over.

In Defense of the Burkha Ban

By Elliot Adams

France’s far-right appeasing Burkha ban has been writ in law for a while now, though it hasn’t been enforced and there has been some further political wrangling over just what the law means for France.

If you’ve managed to miss this part of Sarkozy‘s scheme to win the support of fools and fascists, it constitutes a full ban on covering the face in public – with the exception of people wearing motorcycle helmets and attending festivals. This is bad news for protesters, scarf-fanciers and people with excessive facial hair, but the main thrust of this attack is against muslim women who choose to wear the Niqab, Burkha or the Snood.

Now this sounds like an idiotic idea the 1st, 2nd and 99th time you hear it – but give it that magic 100th chance. You should do so because, properly enforced, it also means a ban on these fuckers;

The minarets of Disneyland’s castle represent the greater threat to western culture

When they’re not peddling cheap plastic child-silencers with the Disney brand’s formidable pester power, sexualising children or indoctrinating them with the many questionable ethical lessons of their films and characters, Disney are just busy being hella’ creepy.

With this new law we can hope that Disneyland Paris will be depopulated of its grotesque denizens. These tortured chimeras are victims too though, they cannot speak(their mouths stuffed with blackened gauss) and they cannot leave the confines of their phantasmagorical realm. As Sarkozy said, “We cannot accept … prisoners behind a screen, cut off from all social life, deprived of all identity” and quite rightly so, I can only assume he was thinking of the creatures in the ghetto of Disneyland Paris, their curse is to forever shamble through unreal streets with permanent smiles stretched over their faces and their unmoving dead eyes glaring for the next child to ensnare.

Disney's advertising publicly sexualises children, Burkhas publicly desexualise women - I think the former is worse.

Disney raises the West’s children, championing the bland and the insipid, replacing parenting with a multimedia feast of bright colours and unimaginative stories of outdated morality.

Disney is a bigger threat to Western culture than any act of religious devotion and this new law would strike a mighty blow against its heart of darkness in Disneyland paris – if I had my way Cinderella would be dragged from her home and shot behind the chemical sheds, but more moderate voices prevail for now. That is why the Burkha ban should have our support, only perhaps we should rename it to recognise our real enemy – henceforth it shall be known as ‘The Magic Kingdom Final Solution’.

Ready to be shipped to Paris at a moments notice.

We must of course make an example of their leader, Mickey ‘lord of the woods’ Mouse. Construction has already begun on his means of dispatch, to be placed in Place du Carrousel where the Parisian guillotine once sat.

Officials insist the Burkha ban is not discriminatory because it would apply to everyone, not just Muslims. By that logic however I would be unsurprised, though horrified, to see the suggestion of new laws prohibiting the possession of a yarmulhah, or the wearing of a crucifix. But I can hold out hope for the outlawing of oversized mouse ears and *shudder* child-like glee.

.”]

Let's make it happen France, be cheese-eating victory monkeys. (Image: Unknown)

The Heartache of Students Reporting Their Own Tragedy

33 Virginia Tech students died during the shootings, this a candlelight vigil was held as part of VT's memorialisation process.

By Elliot Adams

I stumbled across this moving and provocative documentary about how The Collegiate Times, a student-run newspaper at Virginia Tech., dealt with the Virginia Tech Massacre. Their coverage was ahead of the international press, being the first media outlet to break news on the shootings, with online coverage as information came in on the day and extensive coverage that stayed ahead of the national press in the days following. The newspaper faced unique problems in how to give sensitive coverage of events from the student community’s perspective, and provide resources to assist the students in their recovery – all in the face of an increasingly frenzied and insensitive US media circus.

Documenting Disaster follows the 2007 Collegiate Times staff as they recall

How the student paper chose to cover the events.

the chaos of the week following the tragedy, reflecting on the responsibilities of being journalists dealing with tragedy on their campus. These students tell their personal experiences about covering the story of the tragedy, with accounts from their faculty advisor and the university spokesman who dealt with the media during the event.

It’s a pretty long video, but I highly recommend it. It is my opinion that often the press mishandles mass shootings by sensationalising them and focusing on death tolls, sirens and the killer in a way that encourages copy-cats. Perhaps it is reassuring then that a student-run paper has found a far more powerful and responsible approach by focusing on the stories of the victims and survivors.

Documenting Disaster: A Look into the Collegiate Times from Victoria Shirley Productions on Vimeo.

Pick of the Week 9/5

The soft underbelly of the right’s hard abs, by Amanda Marcotte for The Guardian, May 2011.

The anti gay-rights American right’s worship of hypermasculinty is immune to camp.

For all the posturing about toughness, the most salient aspect of this rightwing, over-the-top masculinity is how fragile it really is. The list of subversive threats that will topple redblooded American masculinity is mind-bogglingly long – and grows longer every day.

Somali Pirates’ Rich Returns, by Robert Young Pelton for Bloomberg Businessweek, May 2011.

The men who are earning ever more millions tax-free, now that the world’s attention is elsewhere.

he was merely a fisherman, enlisted to repel poachers. What money he earned, he shared with friends. This is a common refrain among Somali pirates: that they’re just poor fishermen taking up arms to defend the seas from the predatory practices of foreign poachers—the real piracy, in their view. Some …[claim] they go to sea to prevent toxic dumping, too, à la Greenpeace.

Paper Tigers, by By Wesley Yang for New York, May 2011.

What happens to overachieving Asian-Americans when they leave the grade-meritocracy of college?

She was trying to help him. ‘C’mon, smile, smile, and he was like …” And here Tran mimes the unbearable tension of a face trying to contort itself into a simulacrum of mirth.

Facebook Busted in Clumsy Smear on Google, by Dan Lyons for The Daily Beast, May 2011.

The escalating PR war between Facebook and Google over privacy issues and Google’s hunger for Facebook’s social networking territory.

Here were two guys from one of the biggest PR agencies in the world, blustering around Silicon Valley like a pair of Keystone Kops.

Nailing Osama: The media’s delight, by Danny Schechter for AlJazeera, May 2011.

The Emmy Award winning journalist and author of When News Lies: Media Complicity and the Iraq War dissects the role media-image management had on deciding how Osama Bin Laden was liquidated.

Even as the raid inspires mass euphoria and self-righteous blood lust, the full meaning of it is missing in a media that is much better at the how than the why.

The Information Sage, by Joshua Yaffa for Washington Monthly, May 2011.

Introducing Edward Tufte, trusted adviser to the Washington power elite who is revolutionizing how we visualise data.

good design … is not about making dull numbers somehow become magically exhilarating, it is about picking the right numbers in the first place.

Drinks at the Ritz – a tale of two cities, by Michael White for The Guardian, May 2011.

A conversation over Piccadilly appetizers with billionaire publisher Steve Forbes discussing cuts, the economy and the poor.

Needless to say Forbes’s own name does not appear in Forbes magazine’s list of the super-rich, any more than Rupert Murdoch’s appeared in this week’s Sunday Times 2011 Rich List. On Forbes estimate Rupe should be in there at No 11, worth £4.7bn, incidentally a lot more than Forbes.

The Immortal Horizon, by Leslie Jamison for The Believer, May 2011.

A race retracing the prison break of Martin Luther King’s killer, escaping Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary he only managed to cover eight miles of the daunting terrain in fifty-four hours.

The runners’ bibs say something different each year: SUFFERING WITHOUT A POINT; NOT ALL PAIN IS GAIN. Only eight men have ever finished. The event is considered extreme even by those who specialize in extremity.

Honourable mention also for this fantastic interactive infographic from informationisbeautiful’s David McCandless and Andy Perkins, weighing up the scientific evidence, or lack of, for popular health supplements.

Lurid Tales of Doom, New Direction

By Elliot Adams

Good journalism makes you think, great journalism makes you think twice – it moves you with accounts of humanity at her best or chills you with her worst; all to make you question what you once assumed as gospel truth.

Contrarily, there is journalism of the circus or the courthouse. The lurid tales of doom beloved of the tabloids, missing white women and Osama Bin Laden’s face being found on the moon. Or the institutional necessity of producing news based on mediating the best version of the truth. These can both be good journalism too, entertaining, informative and valuable as a commodity.

But to reduce good journalism to that which fulfills these criteria is a mistake. There is art in the media, potentially great art. Often this involves embracing the subjective, which is no bad thing as long as it is acknowledged as such, moving away from the dry and mythical ‘view-from-nowhere’.

Even the areas of journalism most disdained as infantile, videogames reviews for instance, can have a depth that approaches art. In every gamer is someone who has conquered galaxies, built cities and taken part in telling some of the most involved narratives human culture has ever produced. Accordingly games reviews can be more than just descriptions of gameplay and visuals. They can be accounts of love and betrayal, the gamut of human emotion and fantastic architecture, they can produce travel journalism of imaginary worlds or political journalism describing debates that will never occur and yet can be far more compelling than any number of pieces on real world political maneuvering. Moreover, they can produce that rarest and most valuable thing to human society, a story well told.

Holding this to be true, I shall attempt (regular readers know how useless I am at posting with anything close to constancy) to keep a regular ‘pick of the week’ section. Collecting for your reading pleasure, the pieces in the world’s media that best embody these notions.

I am taking suggestions for inclusion, just fire me off a link – perhaps with a short description of why you think it is so affecting – using the contact form.