Friday, February 11, 2011

A perfect symbol of how hard the fight is

I've got Al Jazeera English on. In general, their coverage is fantastic. The reporters are ecstatic. At one point, the anchor asked correspondent Ayman Mohyeldin to drop his journalistic remove for a moment and talk about his personal feelings at the moment as an Egyptian himself, and it was all he could do to keep himself from crying. Another correspondent, whose name I haven't caught, just said as I type that she keeps feeling like she's missing the party being a few floors up from Midan Tahrir, and all but said that she can't wait until she's off duty and can go down and join it.

And about half an hour ago, the anchor was on the phone interviewing a revolutionary who was down in Tahrir (I think it was Hossam el-Hamalawy ). He had just said "We got rid of Mubarak; now we have to get rid of the Mubarak dictatorship," and, emotionally, was halfway through another sentence when the anchor interrupted him because Catherine Margaret Ashton, Baroness Ashton of Upholland, PC, the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy of the European Union, was available to be interviewed.

...yeah.

When the very, very, very best, most sympathetic media coverage that there is thinks that it needs to make the actual people who did this wait so that some fucking poobah can equivocate, instead of the other way around, that right there is a perfect symbol of how goddamn hard the fight is.

11 comments:

Randal Graves said...

In a bizarre way, or because I'm bizarre, I find that almost reassuring; the media's a little fucked up no matter where its waves are broadcast. I'm sure Cathy had a black tie affair to head off to, and those are Very Important.

Richard said...

Yeah, good work.

So frustrating I haven't been able to watch any of this! But we turned on AJE last night, and it was a fairly boring panel discussion about the military and torture. The interviewer, who was mainly pretty good, nevertheless did the same thing, interrupting an actual activist on the street to go back to some retired general and an Amnesty International person. The general sounded like Colin Powell, frankly, talking about how the US would never torture.

(Btw, I learned from you, first, that Mubarak was stepping down.)

Jack Crow said...

Fucking truth.

Anonymous said...

Great example, Ethan!

Anonymous said...

The AJE coverage has been great. Now, to watch them cover MuBarak Obama in a few minutes.

drip

skholiast said...

Good eyes.
Sigh.

Christopher M. said...

Yeah, watching AJE has been remarkably educational if only for demonstrating that commercial mass media works pretty much the same way everywhere in the world.

Ethan said...

Thanks everyone.

Randal, Christopher: In your different ways looks like you're saying the same thing. And I think I really could use a little bit less education, a little bit less reassurance.

travelingwithjennie said...

So what did you think of Mubarak's "stunning" speech that everyone believed would be his resignation speech a few days ago? I thought there was a good chance it was a ploy for Mubarak to claim he was autonomous and independent of the U.S. No matter now, I am glad to see the people refused to take the bait.

Its quite a stunning thing to see how fragile a government is. It really is powerless in the face of popular resistance. I hope this humbles the whaterugonnado crowd just a bit.

Soj said...

What's up with the pseudo-British "I've got Al-Jazeera on"? :P

Ethan said...

Jennie (may I call you Jennie?), I admit I was afraid that speech was going to be a prelude to renewed violence. Now, I see it as being some excellently timed comedy.

Your second paragraph: agreed.

Soj...I know you're kidding around, but that's British? That's how I talk! Maybe I'm a stuffy New Englander without even knowing it. Cheerio, what's all this then.