i'm seeing another disconnect between american and foreign press coverage. this time the disconnect seems to be over bush's alleged talk of bombing al jazeera. the american press reported the account of bush's remarks when it was revealed in "The Daily Mirror" last week. but since then it seems to have moved on.
meanwhile, i have been getting numerous emails from foreign friends about the story with links to its continuing coverage in other parts of the world. for example, the times of london examined rumsfeld's history of anti-al jazeera remarks in the context of a possible plan to target them. there have been political cartoons making fun of bush's threat. members of the al jazeera staff have started a blog, called don't bomb us, and a flickr photoset to put a human face on their staff. the story continues to quietly develop as the british government goes after the leakers of the memorandum documenting bush's remarks, an action that only seems to verify its authenticity in the eyes of the public. and local and foreign journalists in pakistan held a demonstration protesting the plans to target journalists.
it's a little hard for me to judge from here, but it looks to me like our country is in the middle of yet another public relations fiasco. and one that flies directly in the face of bush's claims that he is trying to bring freedom (specifically the free press) to the middle east.
an editorial in the new york times this morning begins by asking: "Let us pause and count the ways the conduct of the war in Iraq has damaged America's image and needlessly endangered the lives of those in the military." the times, however seems to have left out the al jazeera fiasco from the count.*
i guess it's hard to keep track when the stack grows this large.
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* upon reflection, i suppose that the threat to bomb al jazeera's headquarters in doha is not part of "the conduct of the war in Iraq" but rather an entirely unrelated fiasco. because the nytimes was only trying to count iraq war related fiascos, my criticism of them for missing this one may not be entirely fair. but it's still a PR fiasco, and that's my main point here.
