Cogs can think.

I went to a 6 story apartment building in Gaza which just got bombed by Israel. I spoke with local people, survivors, and was looking for emotional illustrations of cliches such as “despair” and “flabbergastedness”. A woman told me she kept on thinking she had to get her washing machine fixed. “But then I realise, it’s underneath the rubble. Just like my husband.” Bingo, brilliant quote, and while I went away, I saw how someone slid brand new baby clothes underneath the rubble, for the approaching camera crews.

Similarly:

After a particularly large Palestinian terrorist attack, the bodies were kept on site just a little longer, because the prime minister wanted to hold his speech against the backdrop of 18 body bags and a burnt out bus. An Israeli secretary made several compliments to the camera crews who filmed a few cheering Palestinians right after the September 11th attacks. In close-up, it seemed like a lot of Palestinians, and the imagery was repeated on US television numerous times. The Israeli Government Press Office proudly reported it had forced CNN to do a story on terror victims - to repay a debt because CNN had interviewed the friends and family of a suicide bomber after an attack. A jewish-American businessman boasted against Israeli media how he had gotten rid of a critical reporter at the Miami Herald by threatening to cut funding to the newspaper.

Joris Luyendijk, one of The Netherlands’ most well-respected journalists and reporters, on the Media War between Israel and Palestine. He has worked for the NOS, and two of our largest and most well-respected newspapers, De Volkskrant and the NRC. He has studied politics, history, and Arabic and religious anthropology in Amsterdam, Kansas, and Cairo. He was stationed in the middle east for 5 years - in other words, he knows his shit.

Last year, he published a book that more or less put a bomb under the journalistic world. In this book, he explained how everything you see on the news, what you read in the papers, about the Arabic world is manipulated and artificial. In fact, the concept of an “Arabic world” in itself is laughable, as no such thing exists - at all. It is like saying that there is a “European world”, and that all of us Europeans think the same, speak the same language, agree with each other on everything. Nonsense of course, and the same goes for the Arabic world.

In the Holy Land newspaper articles and television screens were not just windows on the conflict. They were also the stages on which the conflict itself was being fought. Like an Israeli director of Information said: “It does not matter what happens, it matters how CNN reports it.”

Luyendijk explains that it is impossible to do Western-style reporting in Arabic countries, because of the relatively simple fact that all of those countries are countries without democracy, without freedom of speech, but with vicious dictators and the like. There are no polls, no statistics, no honest opinions, no nothing. In other words, you cannot ever trust whatever’s being thrown your way as a journalist, because there is no way to do any fact checking or any of the other journalistic values. Sure, someone might tell you something, but how do you know he’s not a member of the secret police, or that he is being pushed by the government to make everything look much worse (or better!) than it actually is? You cannot fact-check anything your source tells you, meaning the stories you get told are, according to western journalistic values, more or less worthless. Many of the stories you see, are all written by journalists who were taken by the hand by corrupt and manipulative governments (and that includes Israel!), and shown only those things that they want you to actually see. The journalists writing these articles live separated and secluded lives, live in 5 star hotels, do not speak the local language, and are not in contact with the local people in any way.

But still, they make headline news, and it are those articles and journalists on which we all base our opinions of whatever happens over there.

The book, called “Het Zijn Net Mensen” (”They Are Just Like People”, English review) is a definite must for everyone. It is very well written, filled with sarcasm and self-mockery (he lambasts himself for taking part in the media circus), and it has won several awards this year.

Eye-opening material.