Distance Ed Ideas -
- Is This Media Bias? Dept. Part II - Sinclair Broadcasting Runs Nightline's 'The Fallen'
Fishbowl DC notes that this year the Sinclair Broadcasting Group decided that it was patriotic for ABC's Nightline to read the names of the members of the armed forces who died in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last year. In a press release, the broadcasting group stated "Sinclair Broadcast Group applauds 'Nightline' for paying tribute to those servicemen and women killed in Iraq and Afghanistan...." When Nightline ran a similar broadcast in 2004, the station owner declared that the program was part of a "political agenda designed to undermine the efforts of the United States in Iraq." Wonder what's changed in the last year?
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- Don't Let Politics Get In The Way of Doing Business
Rupert Murdoch is best known in the US for his conservative Fox News cable network, but politics don't keep him from doing television business in China, nor from tailoring the content on his satellite network to match the desires of the communist Chinese government. (Nor from stopping HarperCollins, also owned by his News Corp., from publishing a book by the last British governor of Hong Kong.) Note that this article appears in Time magazine published by News Corp. rival Time Warner, which also owns CNN. For another look at Murdoch, read Ken Auletta's profile that ran in the New Yorker back in 1995.
- Former Marine To Report for Al-Jazeera
Former Marine captain Josh Rushing is going to be a reporter for a new English-language news network being put together by Arab news channel Al-Jazeera. And he's been getting a fair amount of static for doing so. Rushing worked as a public information officer for the U.S. Marines in Iraq and elsewhere, and served as the Marine liaison with Al-Jazeera. (Rushing's work with Al-Jazeera was one of the subjects covered in the documentary Control Room.)
While some accuse Al-Jazeera as being a pro-Arab propaganda channel, others have described it as the CNN of the Arab world. I would say a closer definition would be that it is the Fox News of the Arab world. That is, it works at telling the news accurately, but tells it from a clear point of view. (Interestingly enough, taking a play from the American media synergy department, there is also a Al-Jazeera Sports Channel!)
What makes Al-Jazeera interesting to me is that while it's headquarters are in Qatar, it tends to take a broad Arab point of view rather than that of one particular country. I think that we too often view Arab and/or Muslim countries as all being the same, rather than having distinctly different views. It's easy to forget that Iraq and Iran (and, yes, I know that Iran is not an Arab nation) were at war with each other for at least 10 years.
So the question that this story raises is whether Rushing is working on foreign propaganda or simply working as a reporter for an international news service. Required reading. (USA Today)
- Where Do Arabs Go For The News? Al-Jazeera Whether They Like It Or Not
In the Arab Middle East, satellite news channels that can cross over national borders are clearly the popular source of international news, and Al-Jazeera is clearly the most popular of the many Arab-language satellite channels. Well, let me rephrase that. It's the most watched, or the most important, though many profess to not like the controversial channel. According to NPR's On The Media, a recent survey shows that only 10 percent of Arabs who have access to satellite TV never watch Al-Jazeera. (That is, Arabs outside of Iraq and Kuwait, who were not a part of the survey.) In Iraq, the Saudi Arabian based Al-Arabiya is popular. But American channel Al-Hurra is clearly the last choice, with 53 percent saying they never watch it. Interestingly enough, the Hezbollah channel Al-Manar is Similarly unpopular. I will let you draw your own conclusions from that. OTM's main source for the story is Prof. Mark Lynch, who writes the blog Abu Aardvark. (MP3 audio of this story)
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- Is It Spin Or Business as Usual?
The eternally hard-working Howard Kurtz asks whether the Bush administration is really the ultimate spin-shop? After all, he notes that "Some Clinton White House aides could spin faster than a top...." On the other hand, Kurtz points out that previous administrations didn't pay off commentators and create "bogus news releases." An interesting attempt to put it all in context - something journalists don't do often enough. (Washington Post)
In my mind, the biggest problem with journalists today is not left/right bias, it's refusing to put news in a historical context. It seems that journalists (and their critics) live in the eternal present.
- Does C-SPAN Lean Right?
Fishbowl DC recently ran an item that notes that FAIR (Fair and Accuracy in Media) claims that C-SPAN's morning interview show Washington Journal favors "Republican and right-of-center interview subjects by considerable margins over Democratic and left-of-center guests. The study also found that women, people of color and public interest viewpoints were substantially underrepresented."
To which I say.... What did you expect? Who is in power right now? What percentage of the powerbrokers in DC are white, conservative males? What percent are women or people of color? C-SPAN, it seems to me, always tries to present things as they are, not as journalists living in a "fair and balanced world" would like to see things. Like it or not, that's who's running things right now.
- Did The Chicago Tribune Player Nicer with Bill than W On The Economy?
ChiTrib ombudsman Don Wycliff says no, and backs up his discussion of the issue by reviewing the paper's coverage over the last decade.
- How Free Is The Press In China?
Not very...
- Cartoons of Controversy Dept. Part III - To Print or Not To Print?
The debate over the Danish cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad has changed over the last few days. The question now is not so much whether the Danish paper Jyllands-Posten should have commissioned and run the original cartoons. That's done and over with, and all the analysis in the world is still 20-20 hindsight. The big question is whether you reprint the cartoons for your readers. And it's not a question that most major newspapers or news magazines can avoid. The cartoons are obviously newsworthy, and they are just as obviously offensive and likely to provoke a violent response somewhere in the world.
William Powers at The National Journal has a good column analyzing the debate as to whether to publish the cartoons. The question is not whether you can find the cartoons for yourself online. Of course you can (just look below). The question is what do you, as an editor, stand for. Powers says that it is not so much whether newspapers will publish the cartoons, but why. He writes:
As I read the various explanations, I was struck by how sensible most of them were -- on both sides. Among those who didn't publish the cartoon, The Boston Globe offered one of the strongest retorts to those who argued that it was cowardly to withhold the images. "Newspapers," it said in an editorial, "ought to refrain from publishing offensive caricatures of Muhammad in the name of the ultimate Enlightenment value: tolerance."
Yet when I saw The Austin-American Statesman's rationale for publishing the turban-bomb image, I was, frankly, just as impressed. That paper put the cartoon inside, with a front-page note informing readers where to go to "see an example of a drawing that offended Muslims and find out why it has."
One thing that I find interesting is that commentators are able to move beyond simple red/blue rhetoric on the question of whether to publish. As Powers writes:
[C]onservative blogger, Hugh Hewitt, urged his readers to "begin with the obvious: Some of the cartoons were offensive," while making this important distinction: "Defending the right to publish offensive material ... shouldn't mean having to defend the content published. And it certainly doesn't mean having to reproduce the material."
(Thanks to Doug Fisher for the link to Powers' commentary.)
As previously noted here, the Philadelphia Inquirer did reprint the most offensive of the images. Muslims in the Philadelphia area responded by picketing the paper, thus illustrating the common-sense idea that the proper response to offensive speech is more speech, not less. In fact, Inquirer editor Amanda Bennett told the protesters: "Neither I nor the newspaper meant any disrespect to their religion or their prophet. I told them I was actually really proud of them for exercising their right to freedom of speech." (On Sunday, the paper's Jonathan V. Last argued that papers declining to run the cartoons were making racist assumptions that Muslims would not be able to control themselves if they were confronted by the offensive images.
The cartoons were also run in the University of Illinois student paper, the Daily Illini. Publishing of the cartoons has sparked debate about the issue to the campus and led to peaceful protests on campus. Even within the paper's staff, there has been debate as to how the decision was made to run the cartoons.
But far more papers decided against running the cartoons.
The Boston Globe, in an editorial, explained the paper's reasoning:
This was a case of seeking a reason to exercise a freedom that had not been challenged. No government, political party, or corporate interest was trying to deny the paper its right to publish whatever it wanted. The original purpose of printing the cartoons -- some of which maliciously and stupidly identified Mohammed with terrorists, who could want nothing better than to be associated with the prophet -- was plainly to be provocative. Islam prohibits the depiction of Mohammed in any way, whether the image is benign or not.
Other European papers reprinted the cartoons in a reflex of solidarity. Journalists in free societies have a healthy impulse to assert their hard-won right to insult powerful forces in society. Freedom of the press need not be weakened, however, when it is infused with restraint. This should not be restraint rooted in fear of angering a government, a political movement, or an advertiser. As with the current consensus against publishing racist or violence-inciting material, newspapers ought to refrain from publishing offensive caricatures of Mohammed in the name of the ultimate Enlightenment value: tolerance.
Just as the demand from Muslim countries for European governments to punish papers that printed the cartoons shows a misunderstanding of free societies, publishing the cartoons reflects an obtuse refusal to accept the profound meaning for a billion Muslims of Islam's prohibition against any pictorial representation of the prophet. Depicting Mohammed wearing a turban in the form of a bomb with a sputtering fuse is no less hurtful to most Muslims than Nazi caricatures of Jews or Ku Klux Klan caricatures of blacks are to those victims of intolerance. That is why the Danish cartoons will not be reproduced on these pages.
Numerous other papers also explained their decisions not to run the cartoons, including the Waco Tribune-Herald, New Jersey's Daily Record, and the Wisconsin State Journal.
Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell explained her paper's decision not to run the cartoons. Len Downie, the paper's executive editor, said the decision was an issue of journalistic judgment, not courage:
"This newspaper vigorously exercises its freedom of expression every day. In doing so, we have standards for accuracy, fairness and taste that our readers have come to expect from The Post. We decided that publishing these cartoons would violate our standards. This has not prevented us from reporting about them and the controversy in great detail in many stories over several days."
Howell notes that the paper's stylebook says the following:
"Defamatory or prejudicial words and phrases that perpetuate racial, religious or ethnic stereotypes are impermissible."
This is not the first time the Post has declined to run cartoons it deems offensive. On at least two occasions, the Post withheld Aaron McGruder's strip Boondocks. Once for making fun of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice dating habits and once for talking about an imaginary reality show "Give a N***** a Job." (You'll have to scroll down a ways in the link to find the mention.)
Boondocks is not the only comic strip to get pulled on occasion. According to Editor & Publisher at least a dozen papers declined to run a Doonesbury strip last July that had President Bush calling his aid Karl Rove "turd blossom." (Reportedly turd blossom really is Bush's nickname for Rove. It is also Texas slang for a flower that grows out of a cow pie.) And in September of 2003, numerous papers ran a substitute strip in place of a Doonesbury that discussed masturbation as a way of preventing prostate cancer. Oddly enough, yet another Boondocks strip got pulled by many papers on the same day.
So the decision not to run a cartoon on the basis of taste is not unique; and declining to run a cartoon is not necessarily done because it offends liberal sensibilities. (Note that all the examples above are from two of the most liberal comic strips available.)
Being a blogger, I was able to take a safe middle ground approach - I posted links to the cartoons, but I didn't post the images themselves on my site. Accuse me of wussing out if you will, but at least I'm consistent. When the images of killings from Fallujah came out in April of 2004, I provided links to them rather than republishing them on my site. On the other hand, Daryl Cagle's fabulous editorial cartoon website and blog has the cartoons, and endless cartoons dealing with the controversy. He has also, through his newspaper column on cartooning, given a clear explanation of the issues from a cartoonist's point of view.
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- Foreign and Domestic
Along with all international furor over the Danish political cartoons portraying Muhammad, there has been a smaller scale fuss in the United States over a cartoon drawn by Washington Post cartoonist Tom Toles. The cartoon (1/29) features a quadriplegic soldier (labeled U.S. Army) in a hospital bed with Dr. Rumsfeld saying, "I'm listing your condition as 'battle hardened.'" The controversy is based on whether the cartoon is disrespectful to American troops (certainly not by intent, perhaps just on general principle) or to Rumsfeld (beyond doubt). It is unquestionably an arresting and provocative image, as Toles' obviously intended.
The Post received a rare letter signed by all of the Joints Chiefs of Staff expressing their outrage at the cartoon, and media reporter Howard Kurtz took an extended look at the issue in his column on Feb. 2. Perhaps more interesting are the letters to the editor that ran on Feb. 4. Whether the letters praise or condemn the cartoon, they all illustrate the importance of political cartoons in sparking public debate.
Toles isn't the only artists to use a injured solider in a political cartoon - Mike Luckovich had one dealing with the press's fascination with Bob Woodruff's injuries run in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. But as Dave Astor points out in Editor & Publisher, no one from the Joint Chiefs has complained about it. Why? Luckovich tells Astor, "The onus was on the military in Tom Toles' cartoon," said Luckovich, citing one possible reason. "In my cartoon, the criticism was aimed at the mainstream media." Columnist Thomas Segel has argued that perhaps the press would feel different if it were Woodruff who was depicted in the cartoon. Take a look and decide for yourself.
- More on the Danish Cartoons
- Cartoons of Controversy Dept. Part I - Cartoon Portrayals of Muhammad Ignite International Conflict
Over the last week or two there have been at least two major controversies surrounding political cartoons appearing in US and Danish newspapers. The link above is to a discussion of both cases by Fred Hiatt, editorial page editor of the Washington Post , who looks at what the role of editorial cartoons in the western press.
Today we take a look at the global controversy over Danish cartoons portraying the prophet Muhammad. Tomorrow we'll look at a Washington Post cartoon about Donald Rumsfeld that provoked a letter of complaint from the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Along with Hiatt's commentary, the Post's Sunday Outlook section had a wicked cartoon outlining the issues surrounding both.
So why is half the world infuriated over cartoons published in the conservative Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten? The answer is both simple and complex. Douglas Fisher, who blogs at Common Sense Journalism, provides a good summary of the controversy through an extended quote from the paper's editor in chief. He also provides links to the cartoons themselves, and a blog devoted to the controversy. At the heart of the controversy is the fact that Islam forbids images of Muhammad. According to an AP story, it is a sin for a Muslim to create such an image and the "ultimate sort of insult" for a non-Muslim.
The Post's culture critic Philip Kennicott gives a compelling explanation of why the cartoons have been so controversial and why he believes that publishing them was a really bad idea:
"They were created as a provocation -- Islam generally forbids the making of images of its highest prophet -- in a conservative newspaper, which wanted to make a point about freedom of speech in liberal, secular Western democracy. Depending on your point of view, it was a stick in the eye meant to provoke debate, or just a stick in the eye."
He points out that we would be unlikely to see many cartoons quite that offensive by Christian standards in the US:
"No serious American newspaper would commission images of Jesus that were solely designed to offend Christians. And if one did, the reaction would be swift and certain. Politicians would take to the floors of Congress and call down thunder on the malefactors. Some Christians would react with fury and boycotts and flaming e-mails that couldn't be printed in a family newspaper; others would react with sadness, prayer and earnest letters to the editor. There would be mayhem, though it is unlikely that semiautomatic weapons would be brandished in the streets. "
The response to the cartoons has been massive: At least four people were killed Monday when Afghan troops fired on demonstrators; the cartoonists themselves have gone into hiding for fear of being killed; two Jordanian newspaper editors who reprinted the cartoons have been arrested; the cartoons have been banned in South Africa, with the editor who published them receiving death threats; protesters burned the Danish embassy in Beirut; and American commentators have written lengthy pieces on the controversy.
