Deconstructing March XIV® _______________________ *********************** 3 Steps for change: Bringing women into politics... massively! _______________________ ***********************
Battling God-fearing combattants -2 _______________________ *********************** Mixed courts: an unexplored approach to M.E. peace
Let’s go beyond the article’s obvious polemical and partisan approach, and grasp its central argument: There are a lot of lies, fabrication and an obvious political agenda behind the pro “March XIV” media. In other words, there is very little information and a lot of latent and blatant political opinion. What the posting doesn’t say is that the same is true of the pro “Opposition” media. So if you take a step back and looks at the media landscape, you’ll notice that the overwhelming majority of journalists, editorialists and news-directors have taken sides. Then it becomes painfully obvious that we have a problem. The country lacks a fourth estate. Information has been dwindling for years, and what we are left with is an abundance of uninformed and emotionally driven stances.
Look closely at the orange banner in the previous post. Notice its claim? Don’t you find it strange that a party’s official internet platform considers itself a leading news source? Don’t you find it even stranger that its claim is actually true. Do you honestly see any difference (style withstanding) between it and actual news outlets (traditional and internet based) when comparing their content?
When traditional news outlets neglect their primary function of collecting and processing information, and work as simple relays in political communication, can you blame political platforms that work pretty much in the same way for claiming the same title?
Enough rants. Now let’s try to see what new info we can salvage from this opinion paper (the French have a better term for it “Billet d’humeur” that the practitioner in me calls “Billet de mauvaise humeur”).
“March XIV” pundits have been relatively quiet lately.
“March XIV” (power brokers, pundits and publics) is disappointed with the outcome of the cabinet formation (this is particularly true for the March XIV christians) while the “Opposition” is globally satisfied.
I think that’s about it. The anonymous author is so caught up in the national divide, so tangled up in his rhetorical battle that he fails to understand his own position and how much it neutralises his personal attacks against the “opposing” camp. He also shares with many analysts of local affairs (and maybe even some politicians, while I very much doubt that) the idea that politics is mainly a verbal game. While words and communication certainly do matter, it seems to me that they can only be understood within a power structure and a game as defined or understood by its players.
I wasted a lot of time today on translating this “news” posting I found on Tayyar.org. So you better read it! There’s no information in it. It’s just an outright political attack on March XIV and its media outlets. Nevertheless, it is quite interesting to analyse. This will be done in the next posting.
Where is Samir Geagea?
Direct communication with Samir Geagea ceased once the cabinet was formed earlier last week. He’s been out of sight and out of earshot ever since, probably licking his wounds after all the demagogical slogans he and his spiritual father spawned these past four years were proven wrong. And now these slogans have evaporated, have disappeared, have gone with the wind, crushed for the thousandth time, proving the failure of Samir Geagea’s strategic vociferousness that is and has always been unfounded. It only afflicts those who it deceives with frustration, pessimism and increased radicalisation.
Many other familiar faces have also gone missing, such as Elias Atallah, Fares Soueid, Nawfal Daou, Ammar Houry, Ahmad Fatfat, Elie Marouni, Bechara Raï, Carlos Edde, Michelle Sisson, Antoine Zahra, Fares Khashan, Johnny Abdo, George Bkassini, Oukab Sakr, Ghada Eid, Paul Chaoul (the philosopher), Fouad Saad, Dory Chamoun, Elias Zoghbi, Nayla Tueni, Nasir Al-Asaad, Charles Ayoub, Michel Murr…
They are probably mourning the death of all the ideas that supported the political and electoral discourse they collectively rehashed in order to sway some confused voters by manipulating their communal, religious and ideological sensitivities, by scaring them with lies and fabrications, free from any moral restraints.
For all the others who have resorted to those lies, insults and defamations, to backstabbing and abuse of their servility; for all those I haven’t named, the so-called writers and reporters hired to lie under the guise of political analysis, I tell you to keep silent forever and to resign from your positions, be they journalistic, religious or political. Because all that you’ve uttered, all that you’ve written and all that you’ve analyzed came out to be abusive lies, false and misleading analysis; your rubbish belongs to the trash bin of political history, analysis and logic.
Finally, I hope the Lebanese voter has this once learnt a lesson he will not forget; not to follow the first hundred dollar bill put before him, but to listen to his conscience; to ignore the voice of falsehood and hypocrisy that has already been bought and that learned its tricks from the Syrian occupier; that Lebanon’s salvation lies in the hands of the authentic March 14th.
An informed analysis is tributary to the access to the relevant information. The problem one encounters in studying the cabinet formation process is not the lack of public discussion on the matter, but the lack of reliable information. This is true for several reasons:
The discussion was mostly polemical. Oddly enough it was limited to three questions : distribution of portfolios, choice of ministers, and foreign meddling.
The negotiating parties had decided to keep the discussions secret.
Middle or lower ranking members of the concerned political formations discussed extensively matters that were supposed to be kept private (i.e. distribution of portfolios and choice of ministers).
Editorialists not only built their analysis on unreliable sources, polemical outbursts and unsubstantiated allegations (of intent and of foreign allegiance) but also raised expectations.
Preliminary agreements
Three of the most difficult elements in grand coalition government formation were solved from the onset of the process, and these elements are:
the choice of Prime minister: Saad Hariri
the number of parties participating in the government: Amal, Hezbollah, FPM, Marada, Tashnag (for the smaller parliamentary coalition), Lebanon First, Lebanese Forces, Kataeb and “independents” (for the larger parliamentary coalition).
the general distribution of cabinet seats: with an agreement on four forumlas:
the two constitutional formulas of communal distribution (parity between Christian and Muslims, proportionality between the larger communal groups within each half) that translated in these terms: 6 Maronite, 6 Sunni, 6 Shiite, 3 Druze, 4 Greek-Orthodox, 3 Greek-Catholic, 2 Armenians ;
The general partisan formula: 12-3-5-10, that is: 12 to be distributed between Lebanon First, Lebanese Forces, Kataeb and their allies, 3 for the PSP, 5 for the President of the Republic, 10 to be distributed between Amal, Hezbollah, FPM, Marada, Tashnag.
Muslim communal super-Zu’ama choose the ministers belonging to their community: Saad Hariri 4 ministers (with one given to an independent ally), Nabih Berri chooses 3 ministers, Walid Jumblatt chooses 3 ministers, Hassan Nasrallah 2 ministers. There are two exceptions to the rule that were agreed on: the President picks a Shiite and a Sunni minister that is not vetoed by the communal super-Zu’ama.
Several hypothesis for the delay
With so many points already agreed upon from the onset, why did the process take so much time. Here are the possible reasons that were put forward by the analysts:
“Foreign intervention” (meddling of the US, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iran)
“Michel Aoun’s impossible conditions” and his style.
“The March XIV Christians’ pressure on Saad Hariri”.
Inexperience and bad counseling of Saad Hariri’
Absence of arbitrator or mediator between the two large cross-communal coalitions.
Dans l’édition d’aujourd’hui, Mahmoud Harb partage avec ses lecteurs son point de vue sur le processus de formation du gouvernement dans un article intitulé “À propos d’une pantalonnade“. L’éditorialiste est manifestement de plus en plus las de son camp politique (même s’il continue à le préférer au camp adverse). Et il semble inconfortable dans la perspective adoptée par son journal (et qui reste socio-culturellement bourgeoise, francophone et chrétienne). Voici le petit commentaire que je lui ai envoyé.
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Analyse intéressante, parmi les meilleures que j’ai lu dernièrement dans votre journal.
Mais à mon avis, elle est obscurcie par deux erreurs analytiques qui sont malheureusement assez communes.
Vous dites “les deux mastodontes confessionnels que sont les communautés chiite et sunnite”. Cette métaphore organiciste est complètement inadaptée parce que le propre des communautés libanaises est leur non-corporalité (absence d’organe représentatif et organisationnel), d’où les conflits récurrents autour de leur représentation. Les mastodontes à caractère confessionnel sont Mustaqbal et le duopole Amal-Hezbollah. La nuance est importante puisqu’elle montre des enjeux partisans et des manipulations & des mobilisations communautaires extrêmes.
Concernant les ministères, votre propos emprunte quelques éléments à l’approche réductrice et polémique régnante. Un ministre n’est pas nécessairement la personne la plus forte dans son ministère, et doit de toute manière négocier avec les réseaux clientélistes en place. Ce n’est pas le ministre de l’Intérieur qui a procédé à la nomination de plus de 2000 personnes ces dernières années dans la police. Certaines directions sont controlées par des forces politiques de manière indépendante du ministre de tutelle (ex: à Jumblatt la caisse des déplacés, à Hariri la Banque Nationale et Ogéro, à Murr la mécanique, à Amal la sécu et le rectorat de l’UL…). Ceci complique les calculs politiques et clientélistes que vous présentez de manière trop schématiques.
I followed quite closely this year’s student elections back at my Alma Mater. The picture wasn’t a pretty one. If you took the time to read the Daily Star, l’Orient-Le Jour, An-Nahar, As-Safir, lebanese-forces.org and Tayyar.org, it might just kill your hopes for a better future. Here are the highlights:
the university changed the electoral law without consulting students, without any debate. The proportionate system was chosen because it was “the most democratic voting system”. The university didn’t even explain how it came to this conclusion, echoing the recent general consensus that was imposed in Lebanon that the proportionate system is the only democratic voting system.
the student groups decided to choose politically neutral names for their lists in a bid to depoliticise the battle. This bid didn’t go any farther than this terminological camouflage (that everyone found satisfactory). Most candidates didn’t hide their political affiliations and much of the discussions within the student body were about political affiliations.
Unabashed political bias by L'Orient-Le Jour
The battle was extremely polarised. “Independents” didn’t have a common platform and many question their real independence. The dominant lists replicated the national divide between “opposition” (that is extremely heterogeneous and mostly in government) and “majority” (that is a loose and divided coalition of rival or autonomous parties and patronage networks), here called “B+” and “réforme” (or “University2010″).
The campaign were quite costly and relied on explicit or implicit commercial and political sponsoring. The University did nothing to regulate the financing of the campaign. Even if there were no cases of vote buying, patronage networks were quite active. You had posters, T-shirt distributions, professional logos for the campaign… To try to mobilise the students, one camp proposed manakish and crepes, while the other proposed popcorn. On the following day, each brought loudspeakers and played electronic music.
Are you interested in programs? Well, each list had prepared one. But the students didn’t seem much interested in it. Most of those who I talked to had no clue about what each list was campaigning for (those who did were actually part of the core team supporting a list). The programs were a formal exercice with very little meaning.
Each camp had its own interpretation of the results. Samir Geagea, the leader of Lebanese Forces celebrated the victory of “March XIV” with a “bye bye ya 7alween” while Aoun claimed that his party won the popular vote and most of the big faculties.
I just came back from the screening of Marmoulak (the Lizard) at the Samir Kassir Foundation. I didn’t have the time to sit through the whole film and as the subtitles were hard to decipher (white on white), I let my mind drift around the room and the event.
Why on earth did the Samir Kassir Foundation choose to screen this film? Is it because it was censored? Is it because it is Iranian? Is it because it is critical of the Iranian regime? I think all three reasons are equally true. The Samir Kassir Foundation is quite clear about its political orientation. It is unabashedly March XIV and follows this camp’s political and geopolitical stands and views. So you’re sure to hear more criticism of the Syrian, Hamas and Iranian regime than the Saudi, Fatah or Egyptian regime.
I was sitting in the main room. On my left there was a wall with some 12 pictures of assassinated journalists on it, each “martyr” featured twice: Kamal Mroueh, Michel Seurat, Samir Kassir, Gibran Tueni, Salim al-Lawzé and probably Riad Taha. By putting the word martyr between quotes, I don’t mean to downplay the tragedy of these journalists’ death. My point is to stress that this appellation has political implications and that it indicates a specific interpretation of their deaths.
I’ve never quite understood how the death of some people could be paraded in a country like Lebanon where life has very little value to start with and violent death is not an uncommon occurrence. In 1958, a civil war brought about the death of over 2000 Lebanese citizens, most of them civilians. Between 1975 and 1990, over 200 000 Lebanese perished in the civil war, most of them civilians. In 2006, over a 1000 Lebanese were killed by war acts, most of them civilians. In 2008, over a hundred people were killed in less than 10 days, many of them were civilians.
So what makes the death of a few people significant enough to distinguish them from the lot, to remember their name, to commemorate their death and to give it a personal meaning that elevates them to the rank of role models, heroes? For the innocent civilians that were killed by armies and militias, they are only remembered collectively as victims of the brutality of war. For the journalists that were targeted, their death is interpreted as saying as much about them as it says about their perpetrator.
Regular readers of Lebanese newspapers have come to realise that “news” here is a misnomer. Not only there’s hardly anything new in what journalists lengthily discuss, but there’s very little factual substance in it. I don’t mean to demean our national press or rant and rave for the sake of it. Just pick any article randomly and you’ll get my point. Today’s dominant topic was Michel Aoun’s public declarations on his conditions for joining the government. Very little can be said about such a declaration, and it’s certainly not surprising (neither in its content nor in its timing) and nothing in it was new.
But this didn’t stop our journalists and editorialists (useless differentiation nowadays) from delving into head-on. The argument can be summed up formally in the following equation: prejudice + assumptions + judgement. So much ink spilled over so little information ! I couldn’t help remembering Wittgenstein’s 7th proposition: “What we cannot speak of we must pass over in silence”.
Yesterday, a reporting on a french national television showed the way different organisations in France reacted to a controversial German Aids campaign. This campaign features Adolf Hitler having sex with a young woman with the tag line “Aids is a mass murderer”.
To reveal how controversial these spots and posters were, the French channel not only showed extracts of the spot and pictures of the posters, but aired reactions from two organisations: an aids awareness NGO (Solidarité Sida) and a Jewish umbrella organisation, the Conseil représentatif des institutions juives. The Aids awarness NGO found the campaign’s message counterproductive because it could stigmatize HIV positive men, likening them to Adolf Hitler and considering them potential mass murderers. This effect is certainly possible. And that’s why AIDS charities worldwide have been critical of the advert even though they recognise its shock value (that put AIDS back in the centre page at a time where people are more concerned about flu and unprotected sex has become hype). But that’s not where the story is.
Richard Pasquier’s interview was far more interesting, and I believe truly controversial. The president of France’s largest Jewish Umbrella organisation expressed the shock of the Jewish community, questioned the use of Hitler’s image and denounces the comparison between genocide and an illness regardless of its importance (“ça n’a rien avoir, mais véritablement rien, avec une maladie aussi grave soit elle…”.
Listening to his arguments, I couldn’t help myself from remembering Avraham Burg’s criticism of contemporary zionist trends in his book “Defeating Hitler”. The Shoah has become so defining to contemporary jewish identity that Hitler, its mastermind, becomes an icon (a negative one), a strong symbol directly linked to the jewish ethos to a point where his image is claimed by a jewish “representative” through his criticism of its use.
Last week, LBC & its young anchorman Malek Maktabi were reminded that “red lines” still exist in the Arab world and that crossing them can have an economical and a political cost. This simple fact was brought to their mind when the Saudi authorities closed down their offices in Jeddah following the airing of the weekly programme “A7mar bil khat al 3arid”, “Bold Red Line”.
Here’s the extract that started the whole commotion.
As you might have noticed, the reporting isn’t really interesting. The anchorman’s sensationalism comes across as cheap and uninteresting. We are shown a young man in his “crib” bragging about his sexual exploits, expressing how important sex is to him and how he stimulates his partner’s desire. Some people have described his crowing as lewd, while others have stressed how immature and teen-like his approach to sexuality is. Read the rest of this entry »
Indoctrination: As we have seen, Anticonfessionalism is a State defused ideology. Not only is it a defining element of our constitution and our institutions, but it’s the most prominent feature of our political discourse. Even those who want to maintain the political system as it is are either uncomfortable with it or are embarrassed to defend it publicly.
All public discussions are dominated by negative views of confessionalism. These views have been diffused through the media for over half a century. They have found their way in history books and civic education books.
The consequence is obvious: an overwhelming majority of Lebanese holds negative views on confessionalism and consider it incompatible with all values they consider positive (the latter values are not necessarily shared). As we will see, these views are not based on facts, on demonstrations, but on a global prejudgment. A critical approach is surely warranted when it involves an analysis of merits and faults. But it ceases to be interesting when it’s a simple expression of adverse or disapproving comments and judgments. Read the rest of this entry »
Is Suleiman Frangieh Jr vying for the presidency? The obvious answer is yes. Which maronite politician isn’t? But this one’s chances seem quite good. You’ve certainly heard by now that he is moving to “Beirut” (Rabieh, to be precise). And you might have read a very flattering “portrait” of him that was published in the Akhbar (cf. a previous posting) or followed his meetings with Sami and Amin Gemayel. These are certainly no indicators of his chances for the presidency.
The reasons why he is the most likely candidate for the highest office lie elsewhere. They are to be found in his political & geopolitical positioning and to the fact that he espouses the predominant social values in Lebanon. Let’s first look into his positioning before examining how he reflects the country’s prevailing values. Read the rest of this entry »
Sous l’angle de la distribution et de l’exercice du pouvoir au Liban, la division Quatorze Mars/8 mars n’a pas beaucoup de sens. Sa seule pertinence semble se situer au niveau des alliances géopolitiques, mais également au niveau d’une partie de la base populaire qui y croit. Le pouvoir au Liban est partagé entre quatre réseaux clientélistes qui s’appuient sur de nombreuses ressources: financières, bancaires, institutionnelles, locales, étatiques, étrangères…
L’oligarchie quadripartite: les monopoles politiques en milieu musulman
Ces réseaux sont tous confessionnels: deux chiites, un druze et un sunnite. Trois d’entre eux s’appuient, au besoin, sur leurs armes. A cet égard, le Hezbollah est le plus convainquant, suivi par le PSP et puis Amal, comme l’ont démontré “les événements du 7 mai” 2008. Certe, les pressions géopolitiques les obligent à une rivalité, mais celle-ci restre exceptionnelle et circonscrite sur le plan local. D’ailleurs, même en période de crise extrême la collaboration entre ces quatre réseaux continue. Pour ne citer que quelques exemples: les versements au Conseil du Sud ont continué durant la période de démission non-acceptée des ministres d’Amal… les périmètres de sécurité du Hezbollah sont continuellement respectés… la force de police est “équitablement” partagée entres les différents réseaux… Chacun est satisfait de sa part, et s’accommode de la part de l’autre. Toutefois, cette “rivalité” appuyé par l’étranger à trois conséquences malheureuses: elle renforce la mobilisation communautaire, elle consolide les réseaux clientélistes et elle envenime les rapports entre les membres des trois principales communautés sur lesquels ces réseaux s’appuient.
Ces trois conséquences n’auraient pas pu être neutralisées ou affaiblies par les élections en 2005 (sous le signe de l’alliance) et en 2009 (sous le signe de la “compétition”)… Au contraire, elles les ont consacrés ou reconduits.
La compétition politique en milieu chrétien
Les Syriens ont soutenu l’oligarchie quadripartite dans sa conquête et son renforcement du pouvoir. Du côté chrétiens, seuls des réseaux confessionnel locaux ont été autorisés et soutenus. Depuis 2005, deux stratégies différentes s’offraient aux chrétiens pour intégrer le système politique libanais tel que: l’intégrer en tant que “juniors partner(s)” ou transformer l’oligarchie quadripartite en oligarchie pentapartite. Read the rest of this entry »
Some might question the pertinence of such a political move, but it seems to me not only necessary, but also urgent. Sure, general Michel Aoun’s parliamentary bloc remains Lebanon’s second largest, sure his party is still one of Lebanon’s largest, but how long will it survive constant political harassment and sidelining?
These past parliamentary elections were a battle for survival, the FPM had to face a huge political coalition – a Bulldozer – that’s declared goal was to eliminate it. It was able to maintain itself, but lost 20% to 30% of its electorate on the way. In the coming two days, we’ll look into two topics:
This topic caught my attention today as I heard on the FPM’s radio (92.5 FM, صوت المدى) that the party was studying the results and outcomes of the 2009 parliamentary elections. As expected, the news bulletin said nothing about what was discussed, how it was discussed and what was finally decided.
I stumbled upon a very small news item yesterday that wasn’t given much attention by the Press. Samir Doumit, the former head of the Lebanese Order of Engineers, replaced Salim Diab as head of the temporary commission to restructure the Future Movement. I found this information quite interesting.
Second reform committee, two years after foundation
Hardly two years after the establishment of the Future Movement as a political party, a second committee will be studying new strategies for reform. And interestingly enough, the Prime Minister designate chose a Christian (among his faithfuls) to head this committee. What does this signal? I believe that the picture above says it all. This poster is a follow up to Future Movement’s electoral campaign “As long as the sky is blue”… Here what it says: “We are all under Lebanon’s skies” and it is signed Saad Hariri. On the bottom of the picture, you find the top part of 6 flags that are actually rather easy to recognise: Future Movement (property of the Hariri family), Amal (property of Nabih Berri), Hezbollah, Ishtiraki (property of the Joumblatt family), Kataeb (property of the Gemayel family ) or Lebanese Forces (property of Samir Geagea), and the FPM (property of Michel Aoun).
The message is clear: Hariri and his Future Movement are above the political bikering and divisions. They represent a united trans-communal Lebanon. All this is very nice, but it faces one big problem: reality. Saad Hariri is a Sunni Za’im, and Future Movement is an overwhelmingly sunni party, a mostly sunni KSA backed clientelist network, supported by two funds (educational and socio-medical) and linked to a media group that shares the same name. Read the rest of this entry »
I stumbled across two very telling “portraits” of Lebanese politicians in the press today. As expected, they didn’t reveal much on the two people they were supposed to be informing us on, but they said loads about the journalists who were writing them.
Don’t let the title mislead you. The question is a rhetorical one and the article has little to do with Sami Gemayel. You can scrutinize the article as much as you want, you’ll find no information on his character, no information on his political history, no information on his line of action. At first, it seems a typical form of Lebanese journalist writings, what I call children’s sticker journalism; such writings are based on value judgement, the journalists hands out stickers to reward politicians he aproves of and withdraws stickers from journalists whose “actions” (i.e. “political positioning) he disaproves of. But this article is more than that.
Sami Gemayel is a literary device (usually at the start of a sentence or an argument) for a verbal jab against the Free Patriot Movement (Aoun and his party are after all Michael Young’s consuming phobic obsession), and Maronites in general. Yes, anti-maronitism isn’t dead. The rhetoric developed in the 1960s is still there. Alive and kicking. Walid Joumblatt expressed it two months ago “in private”, when he thought it would remain in the “group” (amongst Druze). Michael Young expresses it openly, in the column of a newspaper. “An alarming number of Maronites today appear to have lost any sense of the collective nature of the Lebanese state”, he tells us. They are suffering from “rural Maronite insularism”. The “resentment, bitterness, isolation, hostility, communal self-absorption” they express “are qualities of a community mired in mediocrity, with no sense of the constructive long-term impact it might have on its environment”. And to finish it all off, Michael Young adds that Maronites are following a “strategy bound to enhance Christian isolation”. Yes, there you have it, the key reference: “Maronite isolationism”… Coming from the same person who accuses the FPM of entering “unnatural” regional alliances with Iran and Syria, and hurting Christian symbols (the presidency and the patriarchy). Is it too much to ask for a minimum of coherence, and some consistency underneath a very “westernized” approach to political analysis? Scratch off the varnish, and you’ll find a massive dose of pure Middle-Eastern communal bigotry expressed through systematic Maronite bashing.
And now a glimpse at Ibrahim Al-Amin’s view of… himself, through his piece on Suleiman Frangieh (Al-Akhbar, 9/7/2009)
You’ll find no “western” varnish in this article at all. Unlike the previous article, there is nothing circuitous over here. Ibrahim al-Amin’s take on Suleiman Frangieh is unabashedly laudatory, and his analysis reflects another typical trait in Lebanese political analysis: the heroic narrative. It’s all about a man standing alone against adversity, a man who’s embarked on a hazardous political journey, a man who knows for what political position he is called for, a man who will meet all the people that are needed to get to that positioning (as if politics was a social event. To understand the logic, think of yourself stranded in the middle of a crowd, incapable of reaching the buffet without tricking people by opening a conversation with them, so that they allow you space next to them, which will bring you a step closer to your champaign glass on the buffet)… Again, you’ll find no information on his character, no information on his political history, no information on his line of action. But Al-Amin will tell you all you want on his political positioning. And his geographic positioning too. Yes, it’s GPS journalism. And not a very precise one. But then Lebanese journalism is all about lack of precision: the reader is supposed to fill in the blanks and read between the lines. Ibrahim Al-Amin informs us that Frangieh is going to settle in Beirut or its suburbs. WorriedLebanese is ready to divulge his exact future whereabouts: it’s Rabieh! Yes, two streets up from Farid Makari, one street up from Elias el Murr, one street down from Michel Aoun.
Let’s go back to GPS journalism. It gives you as much quality information as what you get on Entertainment Channel’s coverage of the Oscar night. You’ll know who talked to who, where they did it, and if they had coffee or shared a meal. Some well informed journalists will even tell you what the two politicians discussed: world affairs, burning issues or regional developments. But what editorialists will really insist on is the great significance of this positioning!
Let’s go beyond the article’s obvious polemical and partisan approach, and grasp its central argument: There are a lot of lies, fabrication and an obvious political agenda behind the pro “March XIV” media. In other words, there is very little information and a lot of latent and blatant political opinion. What the posting doesn’t say is that the same is true of the pro “Opposition” media. So if you take a step back and looks at the media landscape, you’ll notice that the overwhelming majority of journalists, editorialists and news-directors have taken sides. Then it becomes painfully obvious that we have a problem. The country lacks a fourth estate. Information has been dwindling for years, and what we are left with is an abundance of uninformed and emotionally driven stances.
