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Egypt

Pyromaniac Journalism: When The Aim Of News Is To Make The News

Freedom? Responsibility? Fueling fire? The latest "double issue" from Charlie Hebdo
Freedom? Responsibility? Fueling fire? The latest "double issue" from Charlie Hebdo
Christopher Ayad

-Analysis-

Since the beginning of the crisis provoked by the Islamophobic film The Innocence of Muslims, the media have written about it from almost every angle: Coptic extremism, the danger of Salafism, the "arrogance" of the West, the "backwardness" of the Arab world, the shock of civilizations between the Sacred and Freedom of Speech, the difference between Shiites and Sunnis, and so on.

In fact, they have written about everything except how this whole affair was treated by the media itself, given a boost in France by cartoons in the Charlie Hebdoweekly mocking the Muslim prophet. (On Wednesday, the magazine printed "responsible" and "irresponsible" editions - pictured above - to mock their critics)

When Egyptian television shows a video around-the-clock that was concocted by a handful of extremist Copts and fundamentalist Christians in California, when no one has ever heard of it on the banks of the Nile -- can this still be called journalism? The nonstop broadcast, followed by debates and talk shows, ended in the "desired" result: a violent demonstration in front of the American embassy by 2,000 people, not a great many in Cairo, a city of 16 million.

This pyromaniac journalism is the mirror image of the preventive journalism practiced on this side of the Mediterranean, which, during the evening of September 18, consisted of panicky alarms and a great hubbub of special editions and scary headlines announcing that trouble was coming because of cartoons in a satiric weekly that had not yet even appeared on the newsstands.

Predicting future events

In theory at least, consistent journalism consists of reporting facts as correctly as possible. In reality, it has largely gone off on a tangent, making predictions of future events, as expected or even unconsciously desired.

In Paris and Cairo alike, journalists announced the scandal more than they covered it, confusing a demonstration with a planned attack by al-Qaeda against the American consulate in Benghazi; demanding politicians react before trouble even started; forgetting to mention the very weak response to the appeals for protests.

The media, always looking for quantifiable facts, love to cite numbers, but it was as if the numbers suddenly made no sense. For once, the Arab world and the Western world spoke in unison. Unfortunately, there is no reason to be pleased about this.

Without handing out good or bad marks, we can point to a slippery slope, which consists of announcing events ahead of time for fear of missing them when they occur; and, in the end, by provoking these same events, for fear that they will not occur: for like Nature, the media abhor a vacuum.

Does no one remember the quasi-disappointment of commentators when the “Millennium Bug” turned out to be a flop? All that uproar over nothing, all those special reporters wasted, all those expert-predicted apocalypses harmless, all those politicians called upon to act, to announce measures and plans...

When information becomes a show, the show is at best disappointing -- but always bad.

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Migrant Lives

What's Driving More Venezuelans To Migrate To The U.S.

With dimmed hopes of a transition from the economic crisis and repressive regime of Nicolas Maduro, many Venezuelans increasingly see the United States, rather than Latin America, as the place to rebuild a life..

Photo of a family of Migrants from Venezuela crossing the Rio Grande between Mexico and the U.S. to surrender to the border patrol with the intention of requesting humanitarian asylum​

Migrants from Venezuela crossed the Rio Grande between Mexico and the U.S. to surrender to the border patrol with the intention of requesting humanitarian asylum.

Julio Borges

-Analysis-

Migration has too many elements to count. Beyond the matter of leaving your homeland, the process creates a gaping emptiness inside the migrant — and outside, in their lives. If forced upon someone, it can cause psychological and anthropological harm, as it involves the destruction of roots. That's in fact the case of millions of Venezuelans who have left their country without plans for the future or pleasurable intentions.

Their experience is comparable to paddling desperately in shark-infested waters. As many Mexicans will concur, it is one thing to take a plane, and another to pay a coyote to smuggle you to some place 'safe.'

Venezuela's mass emigration of recent years has evolved in time. Initially, it was the middle and upper classes and especially their youth, migrating to escape the socialist regime's socio-political and economic policies. Evidently, they sought countries with better work, study and business opportunities like the United States, Panama or Spain. The process intensified after 2017 when the regime's erosion of democratic structures and unrelenting economic vandalism were harming all Venezuelans.

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