Those poor hapless so-and-so’s at Al Qaeda can’t seem to do anything right, but the Emirates news station Al Jezeera is thriving.
On a weekend seminar in Pattaya, my two English language news choices were Al Jezeera and Fox News, and let me tell you, comparing the two it was no contest. Al Jezeera easily won any comparison with the Johnny-One-Note, All-Anti-Obama-All-The-Time Fox News.
Only Al Jezeera included any real news content at all, for one thing. Real information about important events around the world, far reaching enough to include workers’ unrest in Bolivia; a police sponsored truce for gang violence in El Salvador; and an update on the Mexican drug war that even included coverage of the current presidential election in Mexico. Who knew that there was such a thing going on! They even interviewed Mariano Rivera, defending himself regarding his much criticized recent injury shagging fly balls.
And who won the “Fair and Balanced” award? Al Jezeera again. For instance, they covered a television commercial now showing in Argentina that used an Olympic athlete who will compete in London this summer to make the very anti-colonial point that the Malvinas/Falklands Islands belong to Argentina. Of course they spoke to some Argentines, but they also had no less than British Foreign Secretary Haig speaking for the English side of it. He avoided the issue, only saying that he thought that it was wrong to use the Olympics in that way. The Al Jezeera people never spoke over anybody either, and they never belittled anyone that they disagreed with.
I doubt if I even need to illustrate the treatment that anyone appearing for “the other side” receives on Fox. Rula Jebrael took the alternate position in one discussion, I didn’t catch what the issue was because there was too much yelling going on and I couldn’t hear a word that anyone said. She was introduced as “an author and journalist,” and she’s a beautiful woman, really beautiful, in a Rosario Dawson kind of way. Finally she threw up her hands and called them out on the “fair and balanced” thing, remarking that they wouldn’t even let her say anything at all before the yelling started, two Foxers at a time by the way. That scare-crow looking Fox guy told her, “if we weren’t fair and balanced, we wouldn’t even have you on this channel.”
Of course I spent more time watching Fox News, and there was an unexpected silver lining this time. I find them generally infuriating, but on this occasion the feeling only served to remind me that my anger level has been very, very low for a good while now. I accepted this gift with humility, smiled at my good fortune, and went on with my happy life.
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