Eye on the press

Saturday, November 10, 2001

Clash journalism:
Newsweek muscles the mood
In its November 12 issue Newsweek published an article called "Generation 9-11" about college students in the post WTC era.

The mood being put out by Newsweek might be best summarized by this mid-article quote: " Despite their perceived apathy and political inexperience, this generation may be uniquely qualified to understand the current battle. "I think they realize more than the adults that this is a clash of cultures," says University of Pennsylvania president Judith Rodin, "something we haven't seen in a thousand years."

The prominence of placement given to this interpretation of the current situation by the news-weekly belies its intention to drown the world in complete and utterly meaningless drivel. What exactly does that phrase mean: "Something we haven't seen in a thousand years." The quote is a veiled allusion to the Crusades. Yet again. And why is the only assumption that a battle, or clash, should be happening in the first place?

But that's just the tip of the iceberg of the contradictions laden in the idea. Why would children be more likely to "understand the current battle" better than adults? Assuming they did, wouldn't the logical leap be that they would be less likely to view it as a clash, seeing diversity as the norm instead?


No nukes at least:
Don't bet on it
Writer Robert Wright in Slate comes as close to as you can get right now -- in a major media outlet -- to saying the war on Afghanistan is morally wrong.... But Wright is not against war altogether, just the way it's being waged.

"The higher the number of dead Afghan civilians... the closer we come to being the moral equivalent of Osama Bin Laden," writes Wright in this half peace tome, half exhortation to send in the ground troops if you really want to get rid of the problem.

"How many Afghan civilians is the life of one American soldier worth?

There is no official Bush administration answer to that question, but there is an unofficial one, implied by American military strategy: It's better to kill numerous Afghan civilians than to lose a single American in uniform."

Elsewhere in the article, Wright candidly says that, "Nuking Afghanistan to kill Osama Bin Laden, for example, wouldn't meet with the approval of most Americans." Just as you're jokingly thinking, "Wow that's a relief," be reminded that the piece appeared last week. Just yesterday a poll revealed that a frighteningly large number of Americans actually do approve using nuclear weapons against bin Laden and the Taliban.

Disclaimer and Terms of Use
© Copyright 1996-2005 cairolive.com. All Rights Reserved

Read Tarek Atia's web log
Find out how the world media sees Egypt...

UPDATED DAILY!

The ultimate
East-West
world-view

 
Instant Arabic headlines