Unlike many things in American culture this upswing in Anti-Muslim sentiment has a clear. The amateur video that recently flooded the web titled 'Innocence of muslims'. Many interesting things have come out about this video including the fact that the first claimed director was an Israeli-American when evidence is pointing at an Egyptian group. This is an excellent opinion piece that was publish in Al Jazeera that sheds more light on the situation. This is very interesting and learning the facts that have been uncovered about this is the only conversation that should be happening about innocence of muslims. However stupidity has been flooding social media and news media.
Why so much stupidity? That is because 'Muslims' in the 'Arab world' came out and protested the video. Why do I put that in air quotes? Because it is suggested that these 'protests' were agitated for political control by terrorist groups in the areas to use anti-western sentiment. Whether the video was real, if people overreacted, issues surrounding free speech etc. none of that is pertinent to this conversation and I refuse to speak about it in connection to this issue. What I wish to discuss is how American news media heightened existing anti-Muslim sentiment until it reach the out of control levels I have been recently seeing.
Exhibit One
"Film leads to Muslim attack on US". I personally do not remember such an attack. Perhaps I slept through it. Which building was destroyed this time? How many people died? Oh someone burned a flag? Fuck, we do that. I'm going back to sleep. Don't wake me up again unless you have actual news to show me New York Post.
Exhibit Two
You woke me up for this. Really. Peace of shit? I hope you censored the I due to pun abuse. This is news. Seriously. Here is some news that Americans should actually know:
A debate on the ethics of trade embargoes and using sanctions in order to force rival nations to bend to our will based on rules that we do not follow? Now that sounds like news. That sounds like something worth discussing when it comes to the Middle East. But what is this over here?
Being fucked with a rusty chainsaw would be less painful than the ignorance of this cover
Muslim Rage: How I survived it. How we can end it. lDSJFAO WIEUTQ;WOEIA FSADKXA. HOW STUPID CAN PEOPLE BE. I EXPECTED MORE FROM YOU MAINSTREAM NEWS MEDIA SOURCE. What are the consequences of this lunacy? Hate group nut jobs think they can show their face in public once again
An utterly helpful critique of the Israeli situation showing a nuanced interpretation of Muslim culture from people that are utterly sane and entirely capable of making adult decisions.
What I want to know is how do they manage to generate so much spit??? Do they spit on each star or do they not have the determination? I am personally offended that they are not using the time honored method of killing it with fire. #Muslimsarelazy or is that Mexicans? I forget my stereotypes : |
Oh the old 'your god is imaginary' argument. Always helpful and pertinent.
We will show how non-rage filled we are with extremely tacky hearts on a social media site!!!
Every time something happens in the Middle East three camps rush in to comment. The 'all religion sucks' people, 'Islam is super violent, booooo' idiots, and the 'Islam isn't like that I promise!!!' wastes of space. It is usually ignored by the news media in America entirely and foreign news sources have good information that sheds light on the issue which is ignored by many Americans. My point about this is that none of these arguments are helpful. They result in no useful conversation and the people from the first and second camp just yell at each other and the middle camp just yells at everyone. There is no discussion nor debate. There is no new information. It is ridiculous and pointless.
The big difference this time is that the mainstream news media got into it. They grabbed a hold of the most harmful camp in that circle jerk and brought it into mainstream discussion. Meanwhile Catalonia is protesting, police and protesters are tangling in Greece, Mitt Romney is being a dumbass about planes, people are being racist in Washington and hundreds of other things are being discussed. Yet our news media is stoking the fires of anti-islam fervor in America. I am so tired of seeing this. Of seeing people feeding it. What I will do and encourage others to do is to find alternative news sources and stop talking about this bullshit in this way. I only want to speak about actual news and information. I want to discuss the Middle East and current events in a nuanced and intelligent way. Spouting off hatred and engaging in an intellectual circle jerk holds no interest for me. I will save my circle jerking hatred for people that deserve it. Like people who do not believe in evolution, pro-lifers, bieber fans, and the Iphone5 map.
Yes... it is true. The MSM serves no one except themselves. That is why everyone calls it corporate news. When you have a business, and it is a public corporation, then as an officer of the corporation, you have a fiduciary duty to take the necessary steps to increase the shareholders share value.
ReplyDeleteThis is no big deal, as it is what every business is trying to do -- maximize profits, and there is nothing wrong with trying to make money. The problem, obviously, is that the corporations, since they are committed (in fact, legally obligated) to maximize profits, they will ultimately abandon all journalistic ethics.
These ethics, namely truthfulness, accuracy, objectivity, impartiality, fairness and public accountability are acknowledged by corporate news, but historically, they have always been maintained internally, i.e. self-regulated by some individual tasked with this responsibility. They are accountable to no one to maintain these standards.
As the popularity of a news organization therefore is the most important thing (or at least a mission to be popular amongst a segment of the potential viewers) since this drives advertising revenue, and this shareholder value, the ethics are no longer the guide for any organization.
You can look it up, but public corporations began to take over the news in the 1980s. Prior to that, while never perfect or completely objective, the people who produced the news had a sense of pride over maintaining these ethics. This is why the news as portrayed in "Good Night and Good Luck" seems to have so much more integrity.
As with so many problems in this country, the indeptitude of the mainstream news is a result of Americans who simply believe whatever they are told. When you have that, then the news only wants to report the things that help reinforce the mindset of the average viewer. In your post, you complain about how the MSM led with the anti-Muslem story as opposed to doing any real investigation or reporting. This is because deep down, since 9/11, the majority of Americans have a resentment or a racist view of muslems. So doing good reporting on the issues is rarely a concern. Since it is unlikely we will ever be able to unwind these transactions which created "corporate news", the solution therefore is to educate the public and to teach them to question whatever they are told. Then more people will realize, as you have, that corporate news is news in name only.
The issue to me here is that it is a business. Journalism should not be a business as it is not conceived as such in our culture. We look at advertisements and go 'oh that is obviously biased' but we do not do the same of news stations even though they are both 'business' it is very bad imo.
ReplyDeleteEveryone acts like the problem here is that Americans are sheep and believe whatever they are told but I disagree. I think that everyone, everywhere, listens to news and if they are not experts in the subject take journalists to be experts. It is not only a logical assumption but is a safe one to make in other countries. The issue is that our news is utter twaddle so we cannot make these assumption. However, because we have so little access to comparative information about our country it should be expected that people are ignorant.
By simply writing them off and putting the burden of education on victims of the process and reacting to them with scorn you are doing the establishment's dirty work. If the people who were enlightened actually reached out and put as much energy into education and changing the establishment as they did calling people sheep or ignorant then we would be in a lot better shape.
Tl;dr? Change the news. Not the people.