Opinion: America’s Media Bubble -- A Willful Blindness

"The perspective of these channels is different. So is the spin. The American election was a big story here in the Middle East, but cheering Democrats shared the screen with gut-wrenching images of blood-drenched Palestinian children torn to shreds..."

CAIRO, 27 November 2006 — The US no longer controls the script. That’s a reality Democratic congressional leaders must digest as they seek to recast America’s relationship with the world.

There used to be a time when the US media wrote the global narrative. The world saw itself through a largely American camera lens. No more. Last week’s launch of Al Jazeera English, is just the latest reminder of that.

US foreign policy is being reflected through a blinding array of prisms. Yet America continues to pursue an analogue communications strategy in a digital age.

Just look at the satellite landscape. Here in the Middle East, we can watch more than 300 channels, from Hezbollah’s Al-Manar (labeled a terrorist organization by the US.) to Fox News (which, to borrow Fox’s favorite line, “some people say” is the moral equivalent). Turkey, India, Singapore; wherever you look overseas, all-news satellite channels are de rigueur. Trilingual France 24 launches in a few weeks to bring “French values” to global coverage. Russia Today will soon broadcast in Arabic. Latin America now has a continent-wide all-news channel. Africans are also talking about one. And then, of course, there’s the Internet.

The perspective of these channels is different. So is the spin. The American election was a big story here in the Middle East, but cheering Democrats shared the screen with gut-wrenching images of blood-drenched Palestinian children torn to shreds by Israel tank shells as they lay asleep in their beds. More of those “birth pangs of a new Middle East” Condi Rice spoke about last summer. Americans may be talking change, but Arabs, watching those scenes repeat endlessly through the day, saw business as usual.

Read the rest at the Arab News