Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Middle East Times: cry babies?

I came across the most ridiculous comment in the Middle East Times, usually a rather serious weekly even though they are owned by the Moonies... This I read:
Good news in the Arab world usually translates as no news when it comes to the Western, especially American media, coverage, and the success of this year's Hajj is no exception. The greatest annual religious pilgrimage in the world set new records this year for the sheer number of pilgrims who performed it – more than 2 million in all. Improvements in security, construction, policing and infrastructure made this one of the smoothest-running Hajj's in recent years.

The success of the Hajj and the degree to which this was ignored, taken for granted and plain forgotten in the Western media may be taken as a metaphor for the extremely biased and selective reporting of our region.

So eh gentle men at Middle East Times, you think it is important to widely report that the hajj went well? My goodness, big deal. You want journalists to show that the Saudi's are able to organize something and for once there were no crowds killed in stampedes? 'My dear viewers, we have now watched half an hour of the shaving of the heads of 800,000 men, and we report that all is well. Back to the studio in Atlanta...' More in the Middle East Times HERE.

By the way, CNN as always did a great job in reporting many many boring hours of this. Please do not treat us to this non-news for days!


2 comments:

Snake Oil Baron said...

Considering that the crowds of the religion of peace were at one point chanting "Death to America, death to Israel" on their sacred pilgrimage you would think they would be happy with the media silence.

John Stringer said...

Well, yes, but what can these poor people do? In the fervor of following their beloved prophet, they just can't help shouting that his enemies must all die gruesome deaths.