Media Whores

We are only in the middle of March and the relatively new year has experienced a number of devastating and dramatic events. An 18-day revolt led by the young people of Egypt ousted President Mubarak on Friday 11th February; ending his thirty year reign. The world was still reeling from the revolution taking place in Egypt when a similar situation erupted in Libya a few days later on February 15th.

A month has now elapsed since the revolt began. At first, Gaddafi appeared to be on the way out as rebels seized much of eastern Libya and many officials of Gadhafi’s own government defected to their cause. But since then, employing his own troops and foreign mercenaries, Gaddafi has mounted an effective counteroffensive. Not only has he secured the capital, Tripoli, but he has begun to drive the rebels back, recapturing several towns along the Mediterranean coast. At this rate, he could be in Benghazi—Libya’s second city, which the rebels captured early—within days.

Egypt was the news story for about a week until Mubarek stepped down and was replaced by the Vice President. Incredulously, the media quickly abandoned the story and we have not been informed on how Egypt is progressing under its new regime. The media  determined that it  lost its shock value. They quickly moved on to Libya anticipating Gaddifi would take the same road as his fellow tin pot dictator, Mubarek. Gaddafi has proved many times during his 41 year control of his country that he is predictable in his unpredictability and he was not going  gently into the good night. Quite unashamedly, the media did not anticipate such an outcome and quickly lost interest in the story until the toothless tiger in the shape of the United Nations sanctioned a no fly zone over Libya and French, American and British forces are now bombarding Gaddafi led forces” in order to protect civilians.”

Prior to the somewhat surprising United Nations resolution, one could almost hear the wheels turning in the media’s shallow brains determining that issues in the Middle East were turning into stereo type with successive Arab countries being threatened by a revolt in one form or another, when an earthquake of 6.8 magnitude devastated the city of Christchurch, New Zealand on 22nd February. News anchors and camera crews were whisked down to the Antipodes to cover the story which held the attention of the media for a few days until they unaccountably turned their attention to the ridiculous Charlie Sheen saga which culminated in his firing from the sitcom 21/2 Men.

I’m not sure when the dumbing down of the news media began. I believe I read a statistic once that suggested the attention span of an average viewer under 30 years of age for serious news is approximately 5 minutes.  Indeed it is debatable whether it is the news reporter or the viewer who has been dumbed down. The quality of news reporters on BBC America for example leaves a lot to be desired and you wonder are they recruited from Jackanory or Blue Peter.

Before we had  the opportunity to sit back in our seats, news broke on 12th March that an earthquake and tsunami of a record 8.9 magnitude had struck north-eastern Japan and was 8000 times stronger than the Christchurch quake. The Japan earthquake was ranked as the fifth-largest earthquake in the world since 1900. Now any news reporter worth his salt would have posed the question: were the two earthquakes linked as they occurred in the same Pacific region and in a relatively short time frame?

Unable to find an answer from our wonderful media I decided to do my own research and discovered that scientists studying clusters of large earthquakes around the Pacific Rim cannot link the earthquakes in New Zealand and Japan.

 Professor Kevin McCue, director of the Australian Seismological Centre in Canberra, told the Sydney Morning Herald that the Japan earthquake was a rupture of the plate boundary. He said, “The Christchurch earthquake was not a rupture. It was not an earthquake on the conjugate fault, a fault that’s an angle to the main fault and 100 kilometers away from the plate boundary. It seems unbelievable, but relative to this the Christchurch earthquake was small.”

Before the dust had time to settle (quite literally) in Christchurch, the media whores, excuse me, news anchors were sent scuttling to Japan. Diane Sawyer from ABC news, wearing her puppy dog expression and wearing the latest fashion from Sachs 5th Avenue was interviewing, via an interpreter, a disheveled survivor and asking inane questions such as: “Were you scared?” This lady earns over a million dollars a year and that’s the best she can come up with?

Okay, I am not so naïve that I fail to acknowledge the media need dramatic stories to sell newspapers and to sell advertising on their TV networks. But I do object to sensational and irresponsible journalism. Only two days after the Japan earthquake, Matt Frei of BBC America posed the question on what effect the radiation fallout from the damaged Japanese nuclear reactor would have on the West Coast of America. The answer is none, but it grabbed the attention of residents of California.

Inexplicably, I have been unable to track down any news concerning the welfare of residents of Christchurch and now that the no fly zone has been operating in Libya, the media circus has moved back to the Middle East confining coverage of Japan’s attempts to bounce back from adversity to the back pages.

Now we have the intervention of the United Nations led by France (of all people), United Kingdom and USA into Libya. But what premeditated such swift action from an organization that normally makes a sloth look like an Olympic sprinter? Writing in the Telegraph, General Lord Dannatt , Chief of the General Staff, 2006-2009, said that the hurdle that international leaders had to clear was deliberately set high; a clear request from the Libyan opposition backed by the Arab League and a firm statement of intent by some Arab and Muslim countries to participate in prospective military action.

United Nation Security Council Resolution 1973 specifies that the aim is “to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack … including Benghazi”, but military planners are taught to analyse very carefully the missions they are given.

According to Lord Dannat:” the specified task is the protection of civilians, but the implied task – and the end-state to be achieved – involves the removal of Colonel Gaddafi and his regime and the creation of conditions whereby a government more acceptable to the majority of decent-minded Libyans could be put in place.”

Okay, now we are aware of the parameters, let’s sit back and determine whether the media whores are prepared to give us fair and balanced reporting, or as I believe we will be subjected to image and little substance.

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