Thursday, November 1, 2007

Bad news from everywhere

The public image of Israel has been dragged in the mud by systematically biased media reporting. Every Israeli fault has been reported and magnified. If there are prostitutes or pollution in Israel you hear about it in California and Melbourne. This reporting obscures the fact that Israel and Turkey are the only countries in the Middle East that are anything like working democracies, that Israel provides the best education and social benefits for all of its citizens among all the non-petroleum states of the Middle East and that it leads the Middle East and a good part of the world in technical  To demonstrate the effect of media demonization on the image of different countries, bloggers have created several offerings that target different countries. The original one was Bad News From the Netherlands. It has now been joined by Bad News From Finland, Bad News From Britain and  Bad News From Mexico.
 
Some choice headlines:
Netherlands:

Amsterdam Mayor Authorizes Demonstration of Extreme Rightists

 
Britain:
 

Five men are publicly beheaded in Saudi Arabia... as Gordon Brown hosts their King at No.10

Finland:

Finnish Figures for Losses Caused by Shoplifting Among Highest in Europe

Mexico:

Governor Threatens Force Against Flood Victims

US Plan To Give Corrupt Police Better Equipment

However, it is not the same thing of course if people know that you are delivering bad news. It would be better to call these web logs by more neutral sounding names like "BBC"  "The Guardian," "The Independent...." That would be more equivalent to the situation with bash-Israel media.
 
Ami Isseroff
 
 
 
 

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