Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Monday, September 24, 2012

In the case of Innocence of Muslims, Canadian media managed to be sensational and uninformative

PARLIAMENT HILL—“Publish and be damned!” is the immortal newsroom cry, though it was uttered not by a reporter but a politician, the Duke of Wellington. In reality, media executives are much more officious.

So it was Canadians were told Innocence of Muslims inflamed the Arab world; that the film was so provocative it threatened our foreign policy; that these few minutes of fiction galvanized whole nations; and no, we dare not show it no matter how relevant to the story.

Global News to its credit broadcast a brief excerpt of the film; “Cheap-looking,” newsman Eric Sorensen called it.

And others? “CTV has made a decision not to show any of the film,” the network announced. “CBC News has decided not to show any part of the video,” said its rival.  Neither gave a reason, thus patronizing viewers and driving them to credible uncensored news sources like—oh, I dunno, YouTube, where a trailer for Innocence of Muslims was viewed 25 million times.

Television executives are no good at politics or diplomacy. It is beyond their professional training. Media can trade only in facts, in the manner of the Egyptian archaeologist who once announced to Christians there was no physical proof the Red Sea actually parted: “If they get upset I don’t care. This is my career as an archaeologist. I should tell them the truth. If the people are upset, that is not my problem,” (see International Herald Tribune, “Did The Red Sea Part?” April 3, 2007).

Is self-censorship justified for the sake of people’s feelings? Never. Free speech necessarily protects offensive speech, some of which is unforgettable: Monty Python’s Life of Brian, Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses, Bill Maher’s Religulous.

Is self-censorship justified for public safety? Sure; one newsroom even codified it. When race rioting hit Chicago in 1955, the city’s News Bureau, a wire agency, issued a guide to all TV and radio stations to “prevent hundreds of racists from concentrating at trouble scenes, and yet provide the assurance the basic news is reported to the public.” The result was practical and ingenious:

“Do not use superlatives or adjectives that might incite or enlarge a conflict”; “Avoid use of the word ‘riot’; “When the first reports of trouble are received by police, check and verify the situation before filing an advisory”; “Advisories to stations should be written in calm, matter-of-fact sentences, and in such a tone that it would not be inflammatory”; “Our entire news handling should be a matter of record.”

The Chicago method, in the midst of arson and riot, was to resort to the only tools reporters have: a dispassionate recitation of facts, honest enough to withstand scrutiny, without gratuitous adjectives.

In the case of Innocence of Muslims, Canadian media managed to be sensational and uninformative all at the same time. The Globe and Mail in one issue covered the story in 12 articles and photographs without actually explaining (a) what the movie was about; (b) which scenes or dialogue were offensive; (c) why it purportedly provoked violence.  Globe readers were instead advised the film “denigrates Islam,” and “depicts the Prophet Mohammed as a womanizer and a fraud.”

Elsewhere Canadians were told Innocence of Muslims was “mocking” and “controversial” (CBC-TV); “inflammatory” and “mysterious,” (CTV News); “crude”, “coarse,” “obnoxious” and “nasty,” (The Toronto Star). News editors were so busy panting they could not report what was in the actual film.

I watched excerpts of Innocence of Muslims and found it stagey and low-budget, with poor production values and dreadful dialogue—as in this scene:

ACTOR #1: “Is your Mohammed a child molester? My daughter is but a child, and he is 55 years old.”

ACTOR #2: “He is 53, not 55.”

In another scene, the actor playing Mohammed delivers a soliloquy that reads like it was written by Woody Allen: “Now I shall return to the mountain and find a solution or kill myself. I have been to the top of the mountain to jump and kill myself twice before. Now, I will. I will kill myself. Now I will kill myself.”

As Chris Selley wrote in the National Post, “Frankly, people need to see Innocence of Muslims…in order to understand just how easily violence can be incited in the Middle East. The film isn’t just ham-fisted. It’s laugh-out-loud ridiculous. If a comedian had put together a spoof of an anti-Islam film, he couldn’t have done any better—right down to the hilariously inept overdubs.”

Editors who feared offending viewers or inciting riots might have broadcast brief segments, or transcribed dialogue from Innocence of Muslims to explain what all the fuss was about. Or, they might have articulated some cogent reason as to why the film was too hot to handle in Canada, though millions of Canadians could see it on demand on the internet.

Instead, media executives did neither.

As the Post’s Selley put it, “Lots of news makes people angry; lots of news offends.…That’s what news is.”

Original Article
Source: hill times
Author: TOM KORSKI

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