Category Archives: Journalism and Media

A Voice in the Wilderness that is Gaza

Arab-Israeli Conflict, Journalism and Media, Palestine, Terrorism Issue


[Illustration: Khalil Yaziji found two bodies outside his shop, al-Jazeera.]

So what is today’s top story of violence in the Middle East? Take your pick: the Lebanese army vs. Fatah al-Islam in the camps of Tripoli, a Taliban-ignited bomb exploding in a market and killing civilians in Afghanistan, an assassination attempt on the mayor of Mogadishu, six U.S. soldiers and an interpretor killed in Diwaniya in southern Iraq, more deaths in Gaza. Reading the news (I almost made the anachronistic slip of “picking up” a newspaper) today is a time warp back to the revelationary isle John of Patmos and his prophetic vials of plagues. I am not referring to an incendiary end of the world scenario spun by the late Jerry Falwell (may he rest in Baptist solitude), but the continuing hell on earth. If you think this is about religion (or democracy), think again. Remove the politics (and American involvement or influence) from each of the stories above and the religion is reduced to a drizzle.

So here is my pick of the day, one from the little guy. Al-Jazeera, which has the resources and access that Western journalists can only dream about, published a piece by reporter Laila Haddad, who interviewed a variety of ordinary Palestinians living through the nightmare of Gaza these days. It is worthwhile looking at the violence from the ground-up, a welcome break from the bird’s-dropping view usually spun in the media. Here is what Khalil Yaziji, 26 years old, a shopkeeper and banker thinks of his present and future: Continue reading A Voice in the Wilderness that is Gaza →

The Fort Dix Deep Six

Iraq War, Islamophobia, Journalism and Media, Luke R. E. Publican, Terrorism Issue

Things can’t get worse; they can only get worse. No, this is not poor grammar or end-of-semester illogic but my first impression after listening to the hard-to-digest dollop of the morning news. Another suicide bomb killed and maimed scores in Iraq, this time in the Kurdish town of Irbil. The Bush administration suggests that things are getting better in Baghdad since the wall-less security crackdown, but that is debatable. What is not open to debate is that other parts of the country continue to spiral in insecurity, perhaps due in part to the targeted crackdown in one place. None of this seems to matter to Vice-President Cheney who has made a surprise visit to the Green Zone, mainly it seems to convince the Iraqi parliament not to take a summer vacation this year and be nice about dividing up the spoils of America’s, I mean Iraq’s, oil profits.

In this case it is not only the shit hitting the fan, but the gold as well. Gold as in Fort Dix (Fort Knox or whatever…) but I hope not a golden journalistic award to a local newspaper. Continue reading The Fort Dix Deep Six →

Antebellum and Our Civil Bellyache

Iraq War, Journalism and Media

What makes a civil war a “civil war”? Obviously it depends less on who is actually fighting it and more on what other people want to make of it. Several news organizations, most notably NBC and MSNBC, have bitten the bullet and started calling the current “conflict” in Iraq a bonified “civil war.” The Bush administration, still Cheney-ganged into thinking the good guys will rout the bad guys according to the neocon scenario, is loathe to call the debacle of our occupation a “civil war.” But at least there is no doubt in anyone’s mind that what we see is some kind of war, and not just a few rowdies on a Saddam-nostalgia binge. Continue reading Antebellum and Our Civil Bellyache →

Homeland Security in Wolf’s Clothing

Journalism and Media, Terrorism Issue

The PBS documentary series Frontline broadcast a special report yesterday on “The Enemy Within: A Case Study of America’s Response to Homegrown Terrorism.” This is available for viewing online, along with a website with interviews, readings and links. The focus of the report is on several high-profile cases intitially reported as al-Qaida terror cells on American soil. Now that the judicial process has taken its course, not always in the interest of justice as the report shows, it turns out that there is no evidence anywhere of al-Qaida terror cells here in America. This administration has made protecting Americans from terror such a mantra that security agencies have sent out agents cock-sure radical Muslim extremists are swarming out of suburban mosques. We have heard the cry “Wolf” so many times now, that it should come as little surprise that most of the time all we are seeing are sheep fleeced into wearing wolves’ clothing. Continue reading Homeland Security in Wolf’s Clothing →

How Pundits Fuel Nonsense

Gender and Sexuality, Journalism and Media, Terrorism Issue

There are multiple ways of looking at polygamy, but in an op-ed piece this summer William Tucker did so with blinders on. His July 26 op-ed piece, called “How polygamy fuels terrorism” foolishly fuels nonsense instead.

I suppose enterprising American pundits like William Tucker need to find things to say for weekly (or shall I say weakly?) columns. Continue reading How Pundits Fuel Nonsense →

“On the Eve of Modernity”

Arab-Israeli Conflict, Journalism and Media, Syria


[The Israel bombing of Qana yesterday was not the first such attack on this town. The horrendous picture above is from a similar bombing there in April, 1996, when as many as 300 villagers were killed.]

In a syndicated commentary on July 28, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman illustrated the journalistic malady that exemplifies biased reportage masquerading as informed analysis. While in Damascus he picked up a copy of the English-language Syria Times and noted an ad box that read “The Middle East on the Eve of Modernity.” He continues:

“I thought: What a perfect way to describe the Middle East today – going back to some pre-modern era? Alas, the Syria Times was not trying to be ironic. It turned out the headline was the title of a book about the 18th century. But had it been a news headline, it would have been apt. Continue reading “On the Eve of Modernity” →

What’s Good for Judas is Worth a Gander

Gender and Sexuality, Journalism and Media

 

There is an inherent danger in all archaeological and archival research. What if we find that a cherished truth may not be something worth cherishing any longer and what if it does not even appear to be truth? In today’s front page of The New York Times, in tandem with National Geographic online, it seems that the Gospel has been turned on its head. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John as a group make Judas out to be a goat, the evil quisling who betrayed Jesus. But now a new discovery of an ancient manuscript, reputed to be the Gospel of Judas, points to a good Judas. If this news had come out before Mel Gibson’s Passion, God only knows how it would have affected box office receipts. Of course coming as it does near the premiere of The Da Vinci Code, Hollywood may be in for a windfall. But why wait, since there are already at least two books and a television special for this Sunday on the National Geographic Channel.

Continue reading What’s Good for Judas is Worth a Gander →

Headlines, Heads Turn, Heads Roll

Iraq War, Journalism and Media

Today is the first day of the term at my university. My first class this morning offered the newness of a beginning relationship with twenty students and their first glimpse of an unknown (but dangerous) quantity, their professor. This is the first term in awhile that I am not in some way teaching about Islam or the Middle East (I intelligently designed a brief respite with a seminar on the influence of Charles Darwin). But picking up the New York Times this morning I realized that events in the Middle East are not about to take any time off. The picture top and center shows a well-dressed Saddam, right hand raised in defiance and left hand cradling a Quran. To the left the first news column is all about the Bush administration’s misreading of Palestinian support for Hamas, adjacent to an article by Michael Slackman on President Ahmadinejad of Iran. Skipping over the national news item of Alito’s confirmation process, the final column on the right details the severe injuries to ABC News Anchor Bob Woodruff and his cameraman in Iraq. Readers that go all the way down the page will find tidbits on Enron, Delay’s successor, Oprah Winfrey, Alan Greenspan, Hugo Chavez and Cindy Sheehan and the blockbuster trade of Mike Piazza from the Mets to the Padres. Continue reading Headlines, Heads Turn, Heads Roll →