A rule of thumb in the media is that when the media is news, it’s probably something problematic. The past fortnight has been illustrative.
*Time magazine. If it gets any thinner, it will be a brochure. Can only get so much out of Joe Klein. So, it’s been pushing the provocation envelope. Two weeks ago, it led off its “Briefing” segment with a prominent, Dateline: Paris photo of a Muslim woman in a full-face veil. You knew nothing nuanced would be forthcoming.
France, as we know, has a substantial Muslim minority–and predictably related issues. European–and Scandinavian–Muslims don’t integrate all that well. It’s their prerogative, but it’s still France’s country and benefits package. And you can make a case–at a time when we’re all too familiar with suicide bombers targeting the West–that identity-concealing garb of those most associated with such an M.O. should not always be seen through the acquiescent prism of cultural-diversity and traditional tolerance. It’s called common sense by those who don’t label it outrageously insensitive profiling.
Time chose to characterize the reaction of President Nicolas Sarkozy and the National Assembly, which just banned the wearing of “clothing intended to hide the face in the public space,” as a blatant exercise in INTOLERANCE. Sacre bleu. Even if it were in the good name of outlawing a symbol of female oppression — at least to myopic, ethnocentric, Western eyes.
The French, to be sure, have been called intolerant before. Often by Americans called boorish by the French. Usually over something that is antithetical to French culture, such as a greater appreciation for a velvet Elvis than the Mona Lisa. They do have their snobbish side. But that’s not what this is about. Nor is it about envisioning Carla Bruni in a burqa.
It makes no sense–now more than ever–to allow anyone to routinely cloak their identities in public. Whether you look like Bruni or you look like Sarkozy. Maybe the French are finally fed up with that appeaser tag.
* Time II. The magazine was obviously looking for a marketing coup with the current cover featuring a disfigured, 18-year-old Afghan woman. She had her nose and ears cut off as punishment for running away from abusive in-laws. The mutilation was ordered by the Taliban. It was carried out by her husband and brother-in-law.
The headline that accompanied the graphic photo? “What Happens if We Leave Afghanistan.” The implication: The onus and blame is on us, not the sadistically warped and their horrifically oppressive practices that pre-date 9/11 and all the consequent events and missteps.
But there was managing editor Richard Stengel’s “To Our Readers” disclaimer. It was disingenuous. “We do not run this story or show this image either in support of the U.S. war effort or in opposition to it,” he wrote. “We do it to illuminate what is actually happening on the ground.”
And to be in a position where, say, a Christiane Amanpour, the new host of ABC’s “This Week,” could use it as a prop on Sunday’s show. Its brandishing by Amanpour was effective as her guest, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, had the taken-aback look of one viscerally and geopolitically blind-sided.
* It’s no secret that the blogosphere is a parallel information-communicating universe, not to be confused with mainstream journalism. Some blogs are edgy, iconoclastic and whistle-blower friendly– and serve a serious purpose in a free-press society. Many are awful and are what you would expect from that which is agenda driven and disdains editors, fact-checkers, publishers and libel attorneys.
Which brings us to Shirley Sherrod. She’s the former U.S. Department of Agriculture employee who was ousted after a conservative blogger, Matt Drudge disciple Andrew Breitbart, posted an edited, out-of-context video that made her appear racist. Her firing was a function of overreaction to the manufactured smear by Administration officials who feared, for good reason, that the video was headed post haste for Glenn Beck and other Fox Hole pundits.
Shame on Breitbart, the Tea Party-friendly hack whose BigGovernment.com website is no stranger to controversy or deviousness, and an intimidated, racially-sensitive Administration that gave initial credence to the altered video.
But good for Sherrod. Not only has Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack offered her a new USDA job, but even more importantly she is suing Breitbart. This is precisely the sort of signal that needs to be sent to those blogging agenda-agents who will stop at nothing and stoop to anything in what is looking increasingly like a zero-sum political civil war.
* I understand the reason why President Obama went on “The View” last week. Exposure to a major demographic without any unfriendly fire. We all get that. But that’s no venue for whoever occupies that office.
Bad enough to make the requisite late night comic rounds and the Jon Stewart rite of passage. But that’s an extension of what CANDIDATES have been doing since John F. Kennedy went on Steve Allen’s “Tonight Show” back in 1960. And, yes, it was a cringe-able moment when Bill Clinton was asked about boxers or briefs on Arsenio Hall. But he was a CANDIDATE.
But it’s not appropriate when you’re the PRESIDENT. It’s not being out of touch, uncool or haughty to recognize that some things–from “The View” to Jay Leno in the case of President Obama–are, by definition, below your office. Or they surely should be.
*And in no particular order: “Jersey Shore” cast members removing whatever mystique remains of the New York Stock Exchange; ESPN whoring out for LeBron James; and speculation ending for now as to who will replace Larry King as CNN’s premier softball pitcher.