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TechnoratiPakistan vs. Punditry
I know the US Democratic contenders' debate is important, but how important, compared to, say, the imposition of martial law in nuclear Pakistan?
If the last debate was any indication, the University of Nevada's Las Vegas campus is right now crawling with reporters assigned to cover the presidential horse-race. According to Drexler University, close to 400 members of the media were "credentialed" for October 30th's debate. More than 200 news organizations covered it. One New York daily sent a "live" blogger and five of their editorial staff, including two political editors and a gossip columnist. (The Daily News's Heidi Evans authored an all-important sidebar on Hillary Clinton's ten-year old bout with deep vein thrombosis.)
As for Pakistan, we called around. According to their spokespeople, US networks are relying on just a handful of reporters to cover what could well be the world's most critical crisis. ABC alone, boasts two full-time producers in Pakistan: Gretchen Peters and Habibullah Khan. Philip Reeves, NPR's man on the story, is based in New Delhi. (Sariah Nelson, reports on the region from Kabul.) NBC opened a bureau in Islamabad two years ago but flew in Richard Engel, Middle East Bureau chief and correspondent to cover the crisis. CBS told us they retain one regular camera crew and use local or flown-in reporters "depending on the story." CNN has a bureau in Islamabad, but declined to offer details. Fox News may not have understood the question.
Talking on RadioNation this week, Jonathan Schell couldn't have put it more strongly. Even before the declaration of a state of emergency, there was an emergency. "The Pakistan of Pervez Musharraf has, by now, become a one-country inventory of all the major forms of the nuclear danger," writes Schell. Crude coverage has created a dangerous over-simplification: "The US media have set things up as strong man vs, terrorist," says journalist and author Ahmed Rashid on this Sunday's program.
Pakistan's journalists, always under pressure, have been fighting for their lives. President Pervez Musharraf's government has shut down local TV stations, stopped foreign cable newscasts and threatened journalists with imprisonment. On Thursday, two of Pakistan's four main national news channels returned to the air. It's unclear if the channel's owners agreed to the government's requirement that they sign a "code of conduct."
Sadly, US media don't need a "code of conduct" to keep them in line. Pakistan vs. Punditry? As far as the US media are concerned, there's simply no comparison.
Laura Flanders is the host of RadioNation and the author of Blue Grit: True Democrats Take Back Politics from the Politicians, out now from The Penguin Press.
© 2007 The Nation
14 Comments so far
Show AllWow...I feel really lucky to have only had access to BBC World / CNN World / SKY News last week...I was staying in a hotel.
I can't tell you who did what on "Dancing with the Stars", but I did see some exclusive interviews with Musharraf virutally daily.
iammyself--so right you are---what the heck can we do about this terrible mess piling up all around us and the rest of the world?
"The main problem with our media is that there are people who still actually think it's the news.
Hey elite, we're not buying it anymore."
Good point, willo, but many people ARE still buying it, and that's the problem.
shuoshuokan,
Good point, but there is a crisis: Hundreds of thousands of lives and trillions of dollars worth of crisis. I think most of us here on CD see this, so I wouldn't say we're in the same boat as your "misinformed and manipulated middle classes of Europe." We just don't know what the hell to do about what we do see.
The main problem with our media is that there are people who still actually think it's the news.
Hey elite, we're not buying it anymore. The media people are just whores doing tricks for cash. They know if they actually reported the real news they soon wouldn't have jobs.
Mediated reality is not real. Mediated realities have never been real. What an amusing endeavor when media, re-mediates itself.
shuoshuokan, you are soooo right
You guys are as ignorant as the rest of the misinformed and manipulated middle classes of Europe. You have not understood that this obsession with Islamophobia is just a myth generated by your own elite for whatever class-based or at most, narrow nationalistic interests.
Would Pakistan's nuclear weapon be such a worry to you if your elite had not created the terrorists problem in the first place? As if that is not enough you decides to stir up things among the Pakistani ruling class by bringing in a few more of your puppets by the name of Benazir Bhutto and Inram Khan to facilitate the turning of another country, in this case Pakistan, into a inextricable accomplice in your filthy game of imperial domination.
The people in the major media knows this is all bogus and mere theatrics scripted and directed by their ruling elite. They give it just enough coverage to keep the show going.
It is brainwashed audiences like you who got caught up in the theatrics and think there is this "really big crisis" that demand more attention. Do wake up, dudes.
'Foolish is as foolish does..."
As stated above, almost everything involved in what we endlessly discuss here are "business decisions". America (and, presumably, the 'important people' of other-countries) serves its own-Interests -- economic and political. It remains the 'job' of the Citizens of those countries to demand that leadership's 'bottom-line' becomes less-important than the societal-Values or the good of its common-Citizen. Fail in that Job#1, and you have failed-all.
I have to admire the efforts and this-showing from the Peoples of Pakistan. Would that more-Americans/Brits become as involved/informed and participate in such 'risk-taking' in their-own "Homelands"...
The MSM, also, has _always_ served their own-Interests. I don't understand the general-surprise with their now "not serving the public-Interest'... People must be harking-back to when the MSM sought competitive-'ratings' by presenting more of what governmental-Interests then might have considered 'Controversial'. In today's consolidated/corporate media-world, ratings are a 'given' in a happily-split small-pie (the 'compact' signed by all-Parties) -- and no incentive remains for serving the 'special-Interests' or higher-Ideals not now in perfect-alignment with their Governmental-enabler. A 'fix is in' regards the establishment and maintenance of a controlled-Monopoly -- if Media doesn't rock-the-boat, then its government-won't.
Don't expect any changes in that, unless "real-Competition and appropriate-Regulation" decentralizes the Media into something that needs to 'serve the truth' and its consumers again, rather than a tightly-shared and coveted 'bottom-line', sans competition.
"The US media have set things up as strong man vs, terrorist,"
And that works SO WELL with Saddam vs Iran...fools
If you asked a TV reporter about the "other" important news story, he would assume you're talking about Britney, Lindsey or OJ.
Don't trust the liberal phonies. They are the real enemy.
MSM is becoming less and less relevant every day. They seem to cut corners by failing to actually investigate anything. Instead, they all focus on one or two news items and fill the rest of the time with opinion. (Opinions are easy to come by and don't take much fact finding.) Those of us who want the news have to scrounge around on the net. Non-American sources are often the only place we can find anything. What a shame for us.
Have to agree especially because the media focuses on Iran when Pakistan is the real concern for most.
For the mainstream media it's not what's important, it's what sells. They can manufacture hours of air time from the convention but only minutes for Pakistan. It's a business decision. Just like our foreign policy.
Hoa binh