rc3.org Strong opinions weakly held

The Boston Globe article seems a bit half-assed, starting with the ridiculous title. Calderwood is trying to tell us that maybe Al-Jazeera is A-OK, while parroting stupid talking points about the network. “It is openly partisan, almost never showing Israeli deaths or injuries.” What does stuff like this even mean, given the causality numbers in the Gaza conflict? It seems silly to critique Al-Jazeera for being partisan, when most (if not all) news outlets carry with them their own biases. “If objectivity is your yardstick, the entire way the network’s newscasters discuss the war disqualifies them as journalists. But this is also how my Syrian neighbors see American journalism, which lumps any number of Arabs and Islamists and political rebels together as ‘terrorists.’” It’s like he can’t read what he’s writing. I’m reminded of Chomsky’s Necessary Illusions. One of the ideas in the lectures is on how debates are framed: Calderwood starts from the premise that Al-Jazeera is a partisan soap box for the Islamic world, rather than starting from a more neutral position.

Posted by ramanan on 27 January 2009 @ 11am