i was writing this post before I found out that an egyptian reporter has died from gun wounds in Cairo—
and now I’m kinda reluctant to say anything, because i do NOT want what I am saying to be in ANY way interpreted as being “pro violence” or making light of the very real risks that reporters are being subjected to in Egypt right now…
but I finally decided to say something—because I read that brian williams and katie couric *left* egypt…and…I don’t know.
Ok—so—I wonder. Has anybody else felt like the violence that even FOX news reporters are finding themselves subjected to has sorta—I don’t know—made a MASSIVE intervention in the traditional script western media usually applies to reporting on crisis situations?
Like—reporters are no longer reporters—they are *stars* of their very own reality t.v. shows? they go to live locations like New Orleans or Haiti so that they can make “good tv” NOT because of any professional journalistic standards like “breaking a story” (which is problematic in itself in many ways) or “keeping public informed” or god forbid “witnessing” such that international pressure can protect?
It’s like—this violence and attacks directed at *western corporate media* (NOT talking about other journalists)—has stopped (on a certain level) MSM’s ability to make this story about Anderson fighting alligators or whatever. And it’s sorta exposed how crappy our news sources are these days—say what you will about Tom Brokaw or Peter Jennings or Walter Cronkite etc—they were *journalists* reporting stories—(back in the olden days, Brokaw’s just a dick now) and they *stayed in zones heavy with violence* to bring viewers stories and perspectives they wouldn’t have gotten otherwise…I am not suggesting that they told the stories the best way—or were void of Western Imperial Gaze (Kai has been writing a lot about the media and Tiennamen Square—I was too young to be aware of how coverage was happening regarding that, but I *do* remember the Scud Stud dude from the first Iraq war among other crap)…I’m instead pointing to—at least there was some sort of journalistic integrity where the job was *about the story* and *accountability to the viewer*—NOT about performance—at least not in the sense of today’s media “performance” .
And I’m remembering that story that was going around tumblr about a week ago (that I can’t find)—by Jeremy Schahill (I think) where he outlined the violence that became normalized against media when the US justified the murdering and attacks against al Jazeera and the murder of US journalists (from the Washington Post) that Bradley Manning exposed and how nobody paid that any mind and even the Post just sorta let it drop (it was the post, right? I wrote about it on my blog, but my blog is down so I can’t check it)…
and then I’m seeing US media personalities taking off in the face of violence and turning the violence into an opportunity for good performance rather than taking a stand and standing in solidarity and in alliance with other reporters (like the one from al Jazeera who was the *first* one to get beat up and is never mentioned in any reports or the reporter who was just killed or the reporters who have been killed…)…Amy Goodman (as usual) is one of the only journalists (instead of personalities) that I’ve seen make any sort of solidarity type commentary….
I just don’t know what I’m more appalled at—the violence journalists and media personalities are being subjected to, or the fact that supposed journalists are *leaving* the country….I don’t think a journalist should stay no matter what—or that their presence is even a good thing—think: brad will who should’ve never been in Oaxaca—but even so—indy media honored him AND were critical of his actions as a member of media and critiqued his actions in context of the journalists role in relationship to a community under siege and used a tragic situation to reaffirm a code of ethics for indy media makers…
I don’t see anything *like* that happening right now with MSM, even with those who came under attack. And when reporters are not critical of their own position within a storytelling—how on earth will viewers ever learn to be critical of their positions as viewers and consumers of media?
Well A: All of these U.S. and Western Reporters can just leave right? Egypt is not their home. They have no vested interest in accurately reporting/relaying what is happening and certainly could probably care very little about the safety of the Egyptian people before, now, and most certainly after.
B: US Mainstream media and I dare say even so called progressive media is in love with cults of personality. Take for example when Anderson Cooper was roughed up, everyone and their mami was like, Oh poor Anderson, is he ok, stay safe when the safety of local Egyptian journalists, citizen journalist and oh yeah just regular people, protesting and documenting what they see and are a part of is rarely raised.
C. I have been hearing alot of “oh let’s (meaning U.S. media and polticians) get out of there and let them all kill each other. This view of course erases the role the the U.S. and other entities had in getting to this point.
D. I have also been seeing discussions discrediting the storytelling of the participants, in a very classist, racist, professionalist way. Questioning if anyone outside the mainstream capital J journalism world can accurately cover what is happening.
And I think ABCD and probably all the letters of the alphabet are involved here.
I think there is a difference between what media stars are doing and what other reporters are doing. I don’t want to be a MSM apologist (tho I should note I am a writer who writes for big outlets and little ones) but certainly the BBC, NYT, NPR all still have multiple reporters all over Egypt–and not just in Cairo. And I know some smaller outlets do as well. That said, news orgs are so fucked with money these days–a friend of mine who has been covering Afghanistan for 20+ years is now writing fluff parenting stories because no one wants to spend the money to have him overseas.
I agree, it is totally dismaying to see all this attention paid to the Andersen Cooper incident when you know thousands of people have been attacked and their stories are not being told. Someone said to me “Well they probably have good footage of Andersen and not of anything else,” and I was like, then they need to fire their crew. I think it’s incredibly important to call out attacks on reporters but highlighting one person, even if it is someone who is your friend, distorts the story. I did appreciate that the NYT reporters who were held by the secret police made it clear in their account that there were Egyptians being held and tortured in the same facility, that those Egyptians were still there when the NYTs people were released, and that they knew they had gotten preferential treatment and how simultaneously sick and grateful they felt to be released when others were still being held.
One thing I have been doing is reading my twitter stream of Egyptian activists reporting from the square while I have Al Jazeera English or BBC or NPR on the radio and noting how the reports either reinforce or contradict one another. I also see how even well-meaning progressive folks can get things wrong out of expedience or ignorance.
Example of a phenom I noted Friday: Gamal Mubarak, President Mubarak’s son, resigned his post as the president of the National Democratic Party. Egyptians were posting things like “Mubarak resigns as head of party,” or even sometimes “Hosni Sayeeed Mubarak resigns as head of party.” Western lefties conscientiously retweeted, but they misunderstood and thought that it was the President who had resigned. They did things like shorten the posts in order to repost them and add commentary, or they would capitalize “president,” which introduced an error. Egyptians, knowing their own politics, would know that anyone named Hosni Mubarak resigning as president of the party would be the son, so they didn’t need to made a distinction. The reposters, 99% of whom probably think “Hosni” is the President’s first name, introduced an error that distorted the significance of the resignation–a resignation which is totally significant, but not in the way they thought it was. But traditional news outlets, which took about 10 minutes longer to report the resignation, got it right. And then the reposters corrected themselves. There have also been things that went the other way, with news outlets contradicting reports that were coming directly from the square, then correcting themselves. I think there are also times when ppl on the ground may be speaking their truth but perhaps not being able to be accurate in terms of the big picture just because of being within events as they unfold.**
Your checklist, and what you wrote on the other post are really helpful and I am going to repost and also refer my teen journalist/writer group to it.
**Two more meta things!
1. When ppl are relying on Twitter, and I love Twitter–the 140 char thing makes it hard to give context sometimes. Writing “Gamal Hosni Mubarak, President Mubarak’s son, has resigned from the National Democratic Party” uses up a lot of precious characters.
2. I get so irritated by the constant use of the term “ruling party” in American media. The party has a name. Use it. Catering to the ignorance of your audience is just perpetuating that ignorance. See also “Hosni Mubarak”
The end.