January 28, 2005
FoxNews, Hell, they could use al-Jazeera!
Bret Stephens has a short piece in OpinionJournal's Political Diary today titled "Why Europe Can't Be World-Class: No Fox News"
DAVOS -- Iraqis go to the polls for the first time Sunday, by any measure a historic event for Iraq and the Arab World at large. But at the World Economic Forum taking place here this week, the subject barely rates a mention. Instead, the headliner themes are climate change and the plight of Africa.Why? One reason is that Europe's agenda-setters have already written off Iraq's election as a failure. That, in turn, is a function of the news they watch and read. Roland Schatz, who runs the Bonn-based media-analysis company Media Tenor, says: "European media is trying to justify a longstanding bias that the war in Iraq was a mistake." The idea that something good could come of it is therefore anathema.
Media Tenor recently analyzed hundreds of news stories from "quality" print and broadcast sources in Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Spain. Conclusion: European media focused almost exclusively on security problems and low Sunni participation. Hardly any stories dealt with how Iraqis themselves felt about the elections, and none cast the election in a positive light.
Of course, it isn't really news that European media are unalterably hostile to the Bush administration. But here's a surprise: Mr. Schatz conducted a similar analysis of Arab media, including outlets such as Al Jazeera and the Hezbollah-run Al Manar. Conclusion: the Arab side, Mr. Schatz says, presented "much more diversity of opinion than European media, and a more relaxed position regarding the question of whether Iraq's elections will turn out well."
My UK and Irish friends would have better sentiments of the Iraqi War, then, if they watched al-Jazeera. I have had good conversations with bright people there, but I cannot really make my case because they see only a cartoonish caricature of President Bush and constant, constant, constant, negative reports from Iraq on the Beeb.
Even Rupert Murdoch's SkyNews is no better -- this sister station to Fox shares no familial resemblance. At least here, you can find differing views on FoxNews, or talk radio, or blogs. Over there, our greatest allies only have the Internet. It is no wonder that they have a poor perception of the Coalition efforts.