The BBC does confound

On the one hand, I love the BBC as they report on world news at a level that seems nearly impossible to maintain in this day and age. On the other hand, they're such patriarchal Imperialists, that is making me nuts at times.

I'll leave the Africa elements out of it for the time being and focus on articles such as this one. Okay, so despite the crap title it's about a Croatian doctor in Croatia who allegedly refused treatment to a man who is Serbian. Think about this for a second. What would happen in Britain if a doctor of say British lineage refused to treat someone of say Irish lineage. Would it be worthy of an international headline? No. Would it even make it out of the local news? Probably not unless there was a lawsuit. Most people would probably see it as one or two guys being ignorant dumbasses which is what is happening in this instance. This is on the same scope yet here it is.

But the reason it's news is because for some reason, which I guess must be some weird form of Empire solidarity, the British sided with the Serbs in the Yugoslavian wars. Because here's the other problem I have with the article, "Many international organisations have expressed concern that only around half of the Serbs who left Croatia have gone back, with over 100,000 still displaced." They don't happen to mention the uh... hundreds of thousands of Bosniaks and Croats who haven't returned to Bosnia because of what the Serbs did there.

And that's the real problem in that the BBC casts a wide net, but they are far from balanced as seen with this very positive article about Serbia by the same author. I've had to stop reading the Europe news altogether and Africa I mainly just glance at to see if something comes up. I dread the day that I actually have to stop reading it altogether, but with how blogs are forming the majority of my news sources these days, I'm sure the day will come in the near future.

10 09 2009      2 comments

Tags: media, perception, stereotypes

All seat and no screen make for a dull ride

Below was the scene that greeted me when sitting down in my totally awesome middle seat in San Francisco last week. The back of that seat was to mock me for an additional 10 hours after this. It's amazing how spoiled you get with having your own screen in the seatback to watch and choose your movies at will. I mean, it's rare that there is more than one or two movies that I really want to watch, but having the option to watch a series of crappy movies to pass the time is greatly appreciated. To add serious injury to insult, the screens in the aisles were super high, hard to see and gave wicked neck cramps to watch. That and the only thing sorta worthwhile to watch was Duplicity which I'm sure was much better in text, which makes sense given that Tony Gilroy (the director and writer) started out as a writer. Quite frankly that is where he should stay. I also enjoyed watching Coco avant Chanel and learning that the only thing more painful than English period dramas, are French period dramas.

The lesson to be learned in all of this is to plan accordingly and always fly with a laptop filled with oodles of video. Also, don't fly on code shared flights for Delta by Air France. AF loves to toss their crappy rides at the American routes, although we did ask for it what with the Freedom Fry thing and all.

29 07 2009      0 comments

Tags: media, travel

The Lacking of Balance

On November 21 at 21:00, Radio Okapi journalist Didace Namujimbo was shot and killed in Bukavu, Congo DRC. It's not only a tragic affront to freedom of the press (DRC is in the lower 15% of the world) but sad to me as I had met Didace on my trip to DRC this year. I can't speak French, so our conversation was quite brief, but he was one of those people who exuded a warmth from him. He was also a father and sadly whomever shot him leaves behind a wife and three children.

Of course, I could on about this. I could eulogize and wax about how sad this is. I'm not going to though because the real crime in all of this is the complete lack of balance in media when it comes to DRC and Sub-Saharan Africa at large. Yes, Reuters picked the story and of course MONUC has an article, but there is nothing on BBC or CNN about it. While this may change once the reporters wake up after the weekend, it currently sits that all they're talking about is the conflict up in North Kivu. And it's not like that conflict is raging. There is currently a ceasefire, so Didace was killed on what is in reality a slow news day.

Anyone reading this is more than likely aware of the fact that news coverage in Africa is quite poor, but what irks me beyond everything else is that this is just viewed as "normal". What do you expect, they're savages there, right? Wrong. Bukavu is not Goma. It is not a violent area. It's calm, beautiful, and about as normal as any town can be. This assassination has just come up from nowhere, much as the previous one a year ago. But again, in Western eyes, this is normal.

Congolese have every right to be affronted by such an assumption. If they keep up with European media, they too could assume that Europe is a violent place full of "savages". I bring to light, Ivo Pukanić who I wrote about here and here. He was a journalist killed by a car bomb last month in Croatia. No matter how you want to argue it, these two murders are exactly the same. Ivo and Didace were both journalist, both killed by others trying to silence them, and more importantly both human beings. Yet, for Ivo there was news coverage all over Europe as well as in the US because it was viewed as "shocking". For Didace, nothing. A couple of minor blips on some blogs here and there. Just a normal day in the Heart of Darkness. Is it time for another trip to Panzi?

We have to stop viewing Africa as a less-than continent where killing is expected given the circumstances. We have to understand that foreign journalists are not serving the citizens of Africa. They are serving Western media conglomerates who work to glorify the violence and not tell the stories. Lastly, we have to understand that we are directly responsible for all of this. There are great swaths of minerals in central Africa that everyone wants to control and profit from. This want causes conflict which then causes a good person like Didace Namujimbo who was just doing his job to be killed all in the name of our being able to buy the next iPhone.

This article is cross posted on Subsaharska

24 11 2008      0 comments

Tags: dr congo, freedom of speech, in to africa, media

Looking Like you Care the Affleck Way

Ben Affleck is in Congo again. He was already there a few months ago and ended up creating a short piece that was aired on American primetime television. Affleck is definitely one of the least annoying celebrities to hit Africa this year, especially when compared to that jaunty Rankin fellow as he keeps going back. But even still, what is he doing there? He claims to be trying to draw attention to the region; a region that if anything, is not lacking for attention, as opposed to clean drinking water which they could use just a dash more of. So what is it? Simply put, Affleck is obviously embarking on Celebrity Humanitarian Fashion Education.

While not the best acronym, CHFE is incredibly crucial to all celebrities that want to journey to a crisis-stricken region and have it be known that they do indeed care as you can see in the way they dress that they're ready for anything. It is critical not to make a fashion faux pas like she did. Those sunglasses may block the equatorial sun that is indeed strong (I got knocked down for three days with sunstroke after being an idiot) but they're just too fancy and out of touch. They're not a classic Ray Ban or other "rugged" travel sunglasses. No, Affleck is on to something here and he's going to get a lot of recognition for it. All the Paris Hiltons will never be caught offguard again and for that, the celebrity world will be ever so thankful. The actual people living in Africa? Well, there is so much hope and they're such survivors, that they'll probably just manage.

Cross posted on Subsaharska

21 11 2008      1 comment

Tags: celebrities, dr congo, media

Meanwhile, Hungarian Teachers are Gettin' Nekkid

Yeah, Barack won, great. You know, there is other news in the world and while we were all busy getting amped up on Obama Juice, shit was goin' down in Hungary. While they are known for their ample porn productions that may or may not feature hot classroom sex, one teacher decided that enough was enough and it was time to strip in front of the student body.

As was pinged in, Pesticide and originally covered in "real" media outlet, The Sun, Teresa Juhasz decided to act on a dare at the high school she teaches German at and strip down. This... is hot. This is why more kids need to be educated outside the US or UK (puritans, the lot of you.) I mean, kids learn that nekkidity is no big thing when in the The Europe. Tits are tits and asses are asses. One of my favorite shows in Spanish primetime happens to be one where some women with big breasts constantly has her top unsnapping and they film the reactions of innocent bystanders. I love it because a) I can understand the plot given my nascent Spanish speaking and b) that's as good a broadcasting as Miss Juhasz is teaching.

Oh yeah, you can watch videos of the event (which is really a non-event) on the links above. I live in US America currently, which despite electing the first black president, is unable to give gays the right to marry. So, I figure showing any kind of sexiness is a big no-no.

04 11 2008      0 comments

Tags: hungary, media, sexuality, the europe

Croatian 'Free' Media Suffers a Minor Setback

At 18:25 yesterday, a car bomb exploded in Zagreb, Croatia killing the publisher and editor-in-chief of Nacional, Ivo Pukanić and journalist, Niko Franjić. Naturally, if such an event happened in US America, the immediate response would be to blame terrorist and that "damned El Kayduh". Such assumptions are not made in Croatia. They assume that it's the mafia instead.

While Split has always been known to be unsafe due to all the drug activity (which is of course all from Italy as such issues can't possibly arise domestically), the problems of safety in Zagreb have been escalating in recent events. It seems if you cross the wrong person, you can get you shot in broad daylight. Not a great image for a country relying heavily on tourism money at the moment.

Ironically, I was just having a conversation with a friend two days ago because I was asking him about Nacional and if they're any good. They're apparently better than most as they actually do research and create their own stories; an art lost on most in the media these days. Nacional had run a particularly scathing article on a one Davor Butković who is (or maybe was) a very prominent journalist in Croatia. The man is about as corrupt as they come and Nacional outed him on account of it. My personal grudge against Butković is for the fact that he writes blather about wine that I've found to be worthless. This is doubly unfortunate as it comprises the National Tourism Board's entire Wine Guide for the country, but I digress.

Pukanić had been fearing for his life for some time. I have no idea as to what his dealings were behind the scenes, but on the surface, he appeared to try to report on what was actually wrong in Croatia. This is not a popular stance to take. It has not been a particularly free media scene since the days of Tuđman and his propaganda machine (which thusly morphed in to today's newspapers) that was nearly on a level with Milošević's. The death of Ivo is undoubtedly going to have a chilling effect on the freedom of the press in Croatia. If the EU ascension talks of 2009 get pushed back, I will not be surprised in the least. On the bright side, it gives all the competitors a chance to heap praise on their main opposition without losing any ground.

23 10 2008      0 comments

Tags: croatia, media

When all Else Fails, Pull the Race Card

Years ago, I worked for this behemoth, slightly high-end clothing store in the stock department. Stock, unlike sales a pretty motley group with all different ethnicities and incomes. I found that I got along with most people and it was one of the rare times in my life where I've managed to have more than just white friends. One friend was this girl named Shanda and as most people would guess, yes she was black. We would joke around a lot, but one day, I was sleepy, wasn't watching what I was doing and stepped on her shoe. Immediately I got, "Damn, Hudin, you just went and stepped on my kicks." "Oh, sorry. I wasn't watching what I was doing." "Yeah, well you better be careful or the next time I'm gonna get black on your ass." I still run with the assumption that she was joking, but to this day, I think that she could have easily have been serious and I wasn't really about to find out what, "getting black on my ass" meant. It didn't sound like a plate of jelly beans.

It appears that advertisers have picked up on the fact that most whites take the voice of the black woman to be the most authoritative and powerful. Especially since the Corn Refiners Association has pulled out the following ad to try and tell us that high fructose corn syrup isn't bad for us:

While it initially seems to make the black woman in the commercial is smarter than the white woman and in theory this is paying a compliment, it is actually quite insulting. They use the black woman to play off the fear of, "Oh no, she's black and I'm white. If I argue with what she's saying, I'll be racist." Thus, it allows the argument of high fructose corn syrup being not bad for you to stand. Let's make sure that we understand that they only say it's not bad for you. They never say that it's good for you and it must be had, "in moderation". "Moderation" is a term advertisers use when they want to say, "Yeah, this will probably be what kills you, but we've lobbied to be able to sell it, so use it just a little." Like many people, I've mentioned that high fructose corn syrup isn't good for you and apparently the message is catching on or the Corn Mafia wouldn't be on the defensive, which in reality is a pretty pathetic defense.

They also happen to have another ad, which plays on the issue of sexism instead of racism to try and back up their claims.

The couple seems all nice and pleasant, but the husband is terrified to contradict his wife because he has no facts and while she really has no facts either (no, the premise that corn syrup is from corn is not a fact, it's common sense) he defaults to her argument instead. This is much akin to two people finding a container of a toxic chemical and not knowing what's really in it and hurt each others' feelings trying to figure it out, they decide that they might as well just drink it. I'm rather terrified that we live in an age where the media is able to dictate and override primal instincts that got us to where we are today.

16 09 2008      4 comments

Tags: food, greed, media

Any Given News Day

The always insightful #1 Fan wrote about a talk given by Ory Okolloh awhile back at TED Africa. The talk was interesting. Most of it was nothing new, but she did bring up the very important issue of perception. She was pointing out that because we in the West have a view of Africa as being the horrid, asshole of the world (that's from Apocalypse Now, not her) type of place that it ultimately fulfills this idea. Watch the video and you'll see her explain it better than I can summarize because she shows that it is very easy to view the West in just as bad a light as it is Africa.

Curious to expand on this, I took a look at BBC News yesterday as Monday is typically a big news days. I did a screen capture of BBC News - Americas and BBC News - Africa. Now, I happen to like BBC News a great deal as they and Reuters are some of the few large news outlets that really cover Africa with any depth. With that in mind, take a look at the headlines. I did a rough calculation. On the Americas page, about 81% of the articles were good news as compared to 19% bad news. For Africa, it was 80% bad news to 20% good. See a slight issue there?

This portrayal of Africa is unfair. Yes, a lot of bad things happen there like Malaria and the LRA, but there are good things happening there as well, except that you just don't hear about them as there is seemingly no outlet. It really is easier to report about the bad things and when you report about the bad, it's easier to sell things, which in this case is the constant need for aid to poor, poor Africa. I'm not saying that African countries don't need aid, but they don't need it as it currently is packaged as this system has shown to do very little in the decades since Colonial Rule was ousted in the continent.

Big Media really has little vested interest in showing a different side to Africa. Aid groups also have little interest because despite their altruism, if things don't look bad, the donations don't come in and admittedly some aid groups are far, far worse with this than others. This is one of the reasons why we've been working to create Maneno. Yeah, I know it's a shameless plug, but we're officially in Beta now and the site has come together in great leaps and bounds. This is an attempt to hear voices from those living on the African continent and try to showcase stories of good things which we can then publish in Afractal. Having actually been to Africa and seen that it isn't all disease, war, poverty, and rape, I hope that this project and others like it will work to change the perceptions as there is great power in how one is perceived, which again, Ory illustrated so well in her talk.

This article has been cross-posted on Subsaharska

08 09 2008      0 comments

Tags: cultures, in to africa, media

Something a Little Different in the News

I met up with David Cohn the other night to chat about projects. Mine being The Maneno Project, Watotees, and Afractal and his being spot.us. To recount a two hour conversation in a blog article is pretty stupid, but to summarize, I think what he's doing is pretty damned cool in that it could easily be the next step beyond blogging to truly democratize journalism.

Spot.us works on the principle that people work to chip in to a campaign that either someone in the community has pitched or a journalist has pitched to the spot.us community. The cost is put in to the pitch and once the amount has been reached, a journalist will pull together and research the article. It's a very novel concept that I had originally seen him pitch at the Social Media Barcamp a few weeks back.

He's coming along quite well in the project it seems and while I originally thought he was a web coding geek like me, he's actually a journalist by trade. While it may seem like this could hinder the development of the technology behind the site, he's smart enough to hire some people to do all the heavy binary lifting. He is spending his time spreading the word about the site and is also trying to do a couple of proof of concept projects based on how spot.us will eventually work. It's very interesting to watch and if you'd like to learn more about it, head on over to the campaign page.

You can also read the wiki where he is constantly updating the information. Even if you don't feel like putting in to this particular campaign (and if you live in San Francisco, I shame you!) keep checking it out and see what where this whole spot.us thing goes. I'm sure it will be an interesting ride as David is determined like crazy to make it work the best that it can.

07 08 2008      1 comment

Tags: internet, media, san francisco

10 Ways to Know if Your Country is A-OK

From time to time, we all probably need to sit back and wonder whether the country we choose to inhabit is on the right path. Many of ours are not. A few are. Here's a simple checklist to see if you're country is ready to be considered the next best thing since pickled garlic:

• The UN has not established an acronym for a mission in your country
• Your currency is pegged to (or is) the Euro
• Your currency is not pegged to (or isn't) the US Dollar
• There are commercial air flights to your capital
• Your national airline is not bankrupt and/or on the EU no-fly list
• The president of your country was elected democratically, yet does not have his own weekly television and/or radio show
• Your national cuisine is not claimed by another country
• Western Media only reports about train delays, food, and tourism in your country
• Sascha Baron Cohen's stereotypes of your country's citizens can actually be seen in your country
• You have time to bitch about how bad your national cuisine is and write stupid lists

06 08 2008      1 comment

Tags: currency, media, politics