I didn't say they weren't doing their job, I just think it's interesting that they were assigned this particular job. There's a difference between "ensuring balanced media reporting" and actively suppressing it; suppressing it suggests that you believe you can't successfully make your case in a fair debate.
In general, I think the Administration's animosity towards Al-Jazeera is pretty stupid. The thing is, Al-Jazeera is the closest thing the Arab world has to evenhanded reporting. (I'm not arguing that it is evenhanded, just that it's a lot better than most of its competition.) If we destroy it (not that we can in general, but we can do a reasonable job of suppressing it in our puppet states), that leaves a gap that will be filled by less responsible media and by rumour. By and large, arabs don't trust what the US says. If we want them to believe us when we're telling the truth, it's useful to foster a station that will actually say so when we're telling the truth. Granted, that means people won't believe us when we're lying, but they wouldn't believe us when we were lying anyway. Having an independent Arab station like Al-Jazeera means being believed some of the time instead of none of the time.
(Disclaimer: I don't know more about this than I read in that article. I'm not presuming I know the whole situation; I just thought the bits that I read were interesting. Not surprising, not more dismaying than firing on demonstrators, just kind of interesting.)
To look at this from another angle, it's a lot easier (well, quicker, anyway) to send people with guns into a TV station than it is to persuade people of your case in open debate. I don't want the administration and the Pentagon to get addicted to that feeling.
On another topic related to the press, dje points folks at this Guardian article about the rescue of Private Lynch. I thought that story had an odd smell to it when it came out.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2003-05-16 20:43 (UTC)In general, I think the Administration's animosity towards Al-Jazeera is pretty stupid. The thing is, Al-Jazeera is the closest thing the Arab world has to evenhanded reporting. (I'm not arguing that it is evenhanded, just that it's a lot better than most of its competition.) If we destroy it (not that we can in general, but we can do a reasonable job of suppressing it in our puppet states), that leaves a gap that will be filled by less responsible media and by rumour. By and large, arabs don't trust what the US says. If we want them to believe us when we're telling the truth, it's useful to foster a station that will actually say so when we're telling the truth. Granted, that means people won't believe us when we're lying, but they wouldn't believe us when we were lying anyway. Having an independent Arab station like Al-Jazeera means being believed some of the time instead of none of the time.
(Disclaimer: I don't know more about this than I read in that article. I'm not presuming I know the whole situation; I just thought the bits that I read were interesting. Not surprising, not more dismaying than firing on demonstrators, just kind of interesting.)
To look at this from another angle, it's a lot easier (well, quicker, anyway) to send people with guns into a TV station than it is to persuade people of your case in open debate. I don't want the administration and the Pentagon to get addicted to that feeling.
On another topic related to the press,