Monday, November 26, 2012

Pleasing scripts smell almost like news

Last night, Mohammed Tawfeeq (CNN) filed a report that asserted the holiday (Ashura) was free of violence ("passed without significant violence in Iraq Sunday").  It would be more correct to say it passed with only one known incident (at present, only one).  AFP reported late yesterday that a Diyala Province bombing injured ten of them.  Jane Arraf (Al Jazeera) did a better job than CNN by emphasizing Karbala free of bombings in her report (the headline is incorrect since Diyala Province did see a bombing).

In their reports, CNN  and Al Jazeera all reveal some basis other than news.  I don't know how else to put that.

When Moqtada al-Sadr's bloc -- which was part of Nouri's Shi'ite coalition -- lodges a charge that Nouri's son is part of the corruption in the Russian arms deal, that's news.  In fact, all that's going on in Iraq is news.  So why you want to write about a holiday, after it's over, and sing hoseannas is beyond me. 

Saturday, All Iraq News reported that Nouri's son is now accused of being part of the alleged corruption.  Ahmed al-Maliki has long been accused of benefitting from nepotism but now the Sadr bloc has accused him of being in on the corruption.  Sunday morning, Kitabat reported on it.  Both also noted that Ali al-Dabbagh's public denial last week of being involved in the deal has not cleared him of charges of corruption.  This is news.  And certainly, when Nouri was strutting around announcing he has signed the $4.2 billion dollar deal, Al Jazeera and CNN treated it as news.  Now that the deal's imploded, now that Nouri's son is being implicated in the deal, now that Parliament wants to hold hearings, where is the media that was so eager to promote Nouri's 'great victory'?

Oh, that's right.  They're ignoring what happened in Diyala yesterday so they can pretend Iraq was free of violence on Sunday.

Maybe everyone needs a refresher course on news?  Specifically, that news isn't what fits your pre-ordained and pleasing script but news is what actually happens.

They ignore the charges against Nouri's son, they ignore the Baghdad-Erbil issues (we'll cover that in the next entry) but they rush to inform you Iraq was free of violence yesterday.

Even though it wasn't.

Because Diyala is a part of Iraq and because 10 pilgrims injured is major.  It certainly was major to everyone of the ten injured and everyone around when the bombing took place.

But again pleasing scripts dominate.  

At least CNN still files on Iraq.  One of the few US outlets that bothers to.


These days, Iraq has a better chance of making it into the US newspapers via letters to the editor.  Caroline Bridgman-Rees writes to the editors of the New Hamsphire Register about Iraq:

 Yifat Susskind, executive director of Madre, an international women’s organization based in New York, its partner organization OWFI, Women’s Freedom in Iraq, and other concerned groups have testified that chemical weapons such as depleted uranium and white phosphorus were tested and used by the American military in Iraq and then indiscriminately discarded near homes, schools, and playgrounds in many cities.


Bonnie reminds that Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "The Idiotic Susan Rice" and "Sunset Jackson" went up yesterday.   "Tom Hayden Democrats" went up yesterday.   On this week's Law and Disorder Radio,  an hour long program that airs Monday mornings at 9:00 a.m. EST on WBAI and around the country throughout the week, hosted by attorneys Heidi Boghosian, Michael S. Smith and Michael Ratner (Center for Constitutional Rights) topics addressed include Jeremey Hammond, Gaza, Israel being the third largest arms seller worldwide, Iyad Burnat on Palestine, and Jim Douglas on JFK.


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