Every Thursday night The Economist sends out email summaries of articles in the print issue, political news, and business news. Even though I cancelled my subscription some time ago, I still get the emails.

I noticed that in this week’s they referred to the ousted president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, as a “leftist”. Which he wasn’t, really. (He’d introduced some very mild worker-friendly measures, along with resisting the privatisation of the country’s telecommunications.)

You’d expect that an organisation as “serious” as The Economist would have done enough research to realise this. This made me wonder about the quality of their reporting on Honduras more widely.

Let’s take a quick look at “Honduras’s new president: Lobo alone“, where they mention the November elections:

As a candidate Mr Lobo was evasive, speaking little about the coup and its aftermath. As president his first task will be to gain recognition of his legitimacy, both abroad and at home. His election in November was widely seen as free and fair. But the coup’s leaders have done nothing to ease reconciliation. They have spent their final days in office congratulating themselves: the legislature voted to make the de facto president, Roberto Micheletti, a congressman for life, and granted permanent security details to some 50 top officials at taxpayers’ expense. [My emphasis.]

It’s quite clear that was not the case. (Definitely. Not. The. Case. At all.)

It’s a poor showing, to say the least. But then again, when the following introduces the editor’s highlights email newsletter, can anyone be surprised?

Germany has succeeded in ruthlessly holding down labour costs [wages] over the past decade, which has helped it maintain its unparalleled success as an exporter. Germany is rightly proud of this; but for the neighbours, it is not necessarily good news.

The University of Lincoln’s press office beat me (quite substantially) in publishing a write-up of Dorothy Byrne’s talk at the university last week. It’s a decent article, though Ian writes consistently good copy so that shouldn’t surprise anyone.

But what is interesting is… it’s missing half the people who were part of the talk last week. There isn’t a single mention of Mike Jempson, director of Mediawise, who shared the stage with Byrne.

Update: 11.40pm, December 1st, 2009

My copy’s available here. I’ve focused on Jempson because he had more interesting things to say, and I’ll leave the press office to write about Byrne’s pathetic defence.

Update: 1.20pm, January 25th, 2010

I’ve just spoke to Jenny Sheriston from the press office. Apparently she wrote the copy, and excluded Jempson because Byrne was more interesting, and she considers Byrne to be one of the most important women in broadcasting.

I didn’t write this at the time, but it was the reason for my concern of Jempson’s exclusion: Byrne is is a prominent figure in the dominant media, and so has fairly easy access to other dominant media organisations.

Outside pressure groups, like Jempson’s [Mediawise][ws], often have great difficulty getting attention for their critique of the media, and those with more radical views are often ignored completely.

We should bring attention to marginalised views, and not just focus on the powerful.

I don’t think anyone should really take Murdoch’s views seriously, and certainly not believe what he’s saying.

His motives are so plain to see I’m surprised he managed to get through the entire thing without laughing.

Murdoch is attacking the BBC because it’s a soft target. The Tories are getting in next year, and I’d be extremely surprised if they didn’t hack away at the BBC. He’s making his views on the subject clear well in advance.

News Corp stands to make an obscene amount of money from any cuts at the BBC, and any future cuts are likely to badly affect BBC News. (Recent cuts already have.)

Who is BBC News’ main competitor?

Oh, that’s right. Sky News.

Who’s in charge of Sky News?

Oh, that’s right. News Corp.

Murdoch raised the spectre of “the expansion of state-sponsored journalism”, saying it “is a threat to the plurality and independence of news provision, which are so important for our democracy.”

This is (one of) the point(s) where I’d just be wetting myself on the podium with laughter, if it was me giving the speech. It requires an absolutely stunning feat of mental acrobatics to think of “state-sponsored journalism” as any worse than corporate-funded journalism.

Put simply, one would expect “state-sponsored” journalists to accept and promote the view of the state. What makes corporate-funded journalists any better? Why on earth would a for-profit corporation pay people to make it, or the advertisers that sustain it, look bad?

They wouldn’t, and they don’t.

At the very end of his speech, Murdoch says: “The only reliable, durable, and perpetual guarantor of independence is profit.”

Independence from whom exactly? The state? Sure, I guess, but in most western societies the lines are incredibly blurred between the state and corporations. And certainly not independence from the corporations who own or fund the outlet.

Twice he mentions that “independence” and “plurality” are “so important for our democracy”.

We’ve just dealt with independence, and the response to the idea of “plurality” is similar. The corporate (‘mainstream’) media is owned and funded by corporations. The interests of these corporations are pretty similar, and so they act in similar ways, in support of what business wants. So much for “plurality”.

And finally, the big one, “democracy”. Only big in people’s imaginations, unfortunately. Our democracy is not “less-than-perfect”. It’s less-than-less-than-perfect.

It’s broken. It doesn’t work. It’s simply not democracy. The public have next to no influence, either on a local or national level. The current government was chosen by 22% of the total number of eligible voters.

And that’s it. Public opinion on major issues is often just ignored. See you again in 2010.

So I wouldn’t worry about newspapers closing, because they’ve make next to no helpful contribution to sustaining the health of our democracy, and only exist to serve their owners.

Lastly, Orwell gets misused by a lot of people, but Murdoch really takes the whole goddamn biscuit tin:

Sixty years ago George Orwell published 1984. Its message is more relevant now than ever. As Orwell foretold, to let the state enjoy a near-monopoly of information is to guarantee manipulation and distortion.

I hope I’m not misrepresenting him here myself, but when Orwell talked about the state I think it’s safe to conclude he was talking about those with overwhelming power (or the opportunity to acquire it). Were he writing today, corporations would fill that role.

She’s wrong, but takes us on a 1,300-word journey first. It’s full of exciting words like “poststructuralist” and “subjectification”.

I’ll spare you.

The main points of her argument are almost entirely contained within the last section, “Agency and Power”, and so that will be my focus. I’m not sure that reading the whole essay makes the conclusion any less absurd, but feel free.

Ms Page writes that “‘managed disaster’ is the norm in Gaza”, and therefore it shouldn’t qualify for the DEC’s attention.

While I’m not fond of the phrase, it would be a reasonably accurate description of the territory under normal circumstances. However, the events of “Operation Cast Lead”, to use the Israeli name, were not ‘normal circumstances’. While such aggression is not unusual, it’s not the norm either.

But arguing over whether it was an “urgent humanitarian crisis” is largely meaningless. I don’t know Ms Page’s background, but it’s probably safe to say it’s not in the field of disaster relief or humanitarian aid. I’m a student journalist. We’re not the experts.

The BBC aren’t either. The DEC are. They’re the ones qualified to decide whether something qualifies as a humanitarian crisis, and they decided it was. The evidence supports that decision (PDF).

Ms Page continues on to her second point:

Second, while it is generally an asymmetrical war, the conflict is still reciprocal. As humanitarian discourses often depoliticize conflicts, would deeming Gaza a humanitarian crisis dispossess citizens of political agency and power? Would this compromise the integrity of the conflict or further curtail peace negotiations? Above all, the tension in Gaza is political.

It’s a wooly way of phrasing it ((I misunderstood this the first few times I read the essay. My interpretation of Ms Page’s point may be wrong again, in which case I’d appreciate it if someone could correct me.)). This basically means that treating it as a humanitarian problem ‘muddies the waters’ somewhat, and interfere with seeing it as part of a conflict between two sides. ((I’m very concerned about the woolliness of my own explanation here. Apologies if it hasn’t made things clearer.))

I can sort of see the logic here, but it is quite clearly immoral. Ms Page may dispute the exactly phrasing, but no one could (or can) deny the utterly desperate situation in the Gaza Strip. The only moral decision to make was (and is) to highlight the plight of those in Gaza.

Ms Page writes that “humanitarian discourses often depoliticize conflicts”, but I can’t agree. If anything, showing the suffering (and the need to react to, and alleviate it) is an important element when it comes to thinking about the conflict on a political level. ((In a way, this makes the DEC’s claim the appeal was “not about the rights and wrongs of the conflict” nonsensical. We can identify why people are suffering in Gaza, and who is responsible.))

After outlining her “sophisticated” reasons, Ms Page also accepts the Corporation’s own justification (on grounds of impartiality) as valid. This has been shown to be ludicrous.

Original WordPress comments:

Charlie Beckett:

Hi Rob, thanks for such a full and passionate response. I won’t defend Lindsay’s blog as it was a guest blog and she can do it well enough herself.

However I am suprised at your snide attitude to academic analysis. Why exactly are you at uni? I know your tutors are quite comfortable with concepts like post-modern -structuralist etc. What frightens you about a little theory? :)

And btw the DEC is a collection of NGOs and I respect it but it is also self-interested. Why should we automatically accept what NGOs want, especially as properly critical independent journalists?

Good luck with the blog and your journalism.

Cheers,

Charlie

(PS Sorry for spelling, still struggling with iPhone)

(RJW — Tidied things up a little for you.)

Rob Wells:

Hi Charlie,

Thanks for your comment.

With regards to academic analysis, I dismissed it in this essay largely because it seeks to provide justification for a heinous response to a simple moral question. I believe the public outrage stems from this violation of basic morals and humanitarian principles.

But more generally, I appreciate academic theory and analysis when it’s relevant, and useful in practical ways. I love a bit of Gramsci in my spare time.

As for trusting what NGOs say, I agree with you. But in the case of Gaza the terrible conditions there were well documented beforehand — what Ms Page refers to as a ‘managed disaster’ — and the high-tech slaughter and harsher blockade could have only made things worse.

Best regards,

Rob