America was founded upon the principle of liberty and freedom, but guess who was covering the quest for freedom in Tunisia extensively yesterday? Al Jazeera, not the American news TV Networks!
I am utterly disgusted by how American TV channels have abandoned an important historic event of our time. Tunisian people took to the streets and toppled a Saddam-like totalitarian regime, but their voices and images from their revolution did not make it to the American viewers. CNN, FOX News and MSNBC were busy interviewing celebrities and discussing pet-related stories.
At work, I was able to follow Al Jazeera’s minute-by-minute coverage of the revolution through my iPhone. The Qatari network has an iPhone app that live broadcasts their news, in addition to its presence on Facebook, Twitter and Al Jazeera Blogs.
It was simply everywhere and for free!
Tech Crunch, a popular Web publication that offers technology news and analysis, summed it up in this article on how American news networks failed in covering the news. The article discussed how tweeps criticized American TV networks that were busy broadcasting news related to Marta Stewart’s dog and a guy who was arrested for drunk-driving a donkey in Texas on MSNBC, while CNN was busy interviewing the Jeopardy host about a robot contestant!
This is not journalism. What Al Jazeera did is!
And thanks to the social media websites such as Twitter and Facebook that brought the news to the American public, along with a few articles American newspapers published later in the afternoon yesterday.
Many know that Al Jazeera is unavailable in most American states, the thing that deprives millions of American viewers of watching breaking news with real, good reporting.
Making Al Jazeera, or at least BBC world (not the awful BBC America), available on air, cable or satellite will provide Americans with an alternate source to watch real news, not the heroic rescue attempt of a puppy who was stuck in freezing river.
Shame on CNN, MSNBC and Fox News for intentionally ignoring a gripping event that will directly affect the United States' foreign policy if such a revolution is spread across the whole Arab world.
Bassam, it didn't surprise me in the least. the US backed the dictator, for years and years. there was no anti islam angle to the story. only democracy designed for regime change that US/IS supports (re: iran's green revolution, the velvet and orange revolutions) does the US msm cover.
ReplyDeleteit scares them. the last thing they want is democracy in places like egypt and jordan. they want the crowds controlled under their puppets. really. look on the bright side, at least it wasn't negative coverage, like in israel.
khouri said it best.
4. The most remarkable thing about what has just happened in Tunisia is how thin and narrow was the support structure that held Ben Ali’s security-based regime in power. We learn once again that dictators maintained in place largely by soldiers and intelligence services crumble swiftly once their citizens show that they are not afraid to confront the soldiers...
A major unknown is what the overthrow of Ben Ali will mean for the interests and postures of major Western powers, like France and the United States. This will depend largely on what kind of governance system replaces his security state, whether a democratic and pluralistic system takes root, and how much the Tunisian people will hold Western powers responsible for their decades of suffering in their dehumanized condition as politically castrated semi-citizens. We shall soon find out, because for the first time in half a century we may have an opportunity to learn what the citizens of Tunisia actually feel and want.
the US likes 'democracy' when it follows the rules, they much prefer the arab/muslim masses under control of their dictators. for the most part US msm is one big group think designed to dumb down the public.
plus it was the first overthrow the came about as a direct response to wikileaks!
annie
Bassam, did you hear Biden's comment. I wonder if Obama will go out and correct him. Biden says that Mubarak is not a dictator. Well what ever Biden thinks here is interesting because the whole world knows Mubarak is a dictator. But US foreign policy continues to use lies, lies, lies, lies, lies.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.csmonitor.com/World/Backchannels/2011/0127/Joe-Biden-says-Egypt-s-Mubarak-no-dictator-he-shouldn-t-step-down
Nadia
The heavy commercialisation of US media plus the American public's general insularity combine to spike much foreign news coverage on mainstream US TV cable news. Then, as far as the Mid East is concerned, you have the heavy bias towards Israel in the US media, which has the added effect of mitigating against Al Jaz, seen by some in the US as "terrorist supporting" etc. However, this may be changing slowly, with more demand in the US for Al Jaz.
ReplyDelete