At the last meeting of our class a former student of professor Husni briefly spoke to us about the media in the Middle East. Ola Ghlal, a former journalism student at the University of Mississippi, is now working as a financial correspondent for the Gulf. One of the most prominent topics that she talked to us about was the alleged bias of the Middle Eastern media. The question was if the Middle Eastern media was biased and if so, towards whom? Her answer without any hesitation was a yes; yes the media is biased and they are so in favor of Barack Obama.
A lot of people around me seemed shocked to here this, some of them nodded in disagreement others seemed glad to hear so. The next logic question seemed to be: Why? Why are they favoring Obama? Her answer was that to the Middle East Obama stands for change, for new opportunities. Middle Eastern people also seem to feel closer to Obama, they feel like they can relate more to him. Not only by being a person of color and having a Muslim background, but also by being a Democrat Obama is in no way comparable to president Bush, something that McCain is. With the war in Iraq, the U.S. troops in Afghanistan and so on, Bush has seriously damaged the reputation of America in the Middle East. Of course the Middle Eastern people are going to be ruling for the candidate they feel has their best interest at hand, which in this case is Obama.
The point that I am trying to make is that this is not an incident on its own. Internationally as nationally, this media bias towards Obama is quite a common phenomenon. According to a recent BBC poll people across the world want to see Obama in the White House. All the 22 countries that were involved in this poll (these countries ranged from Australia to India, across Africa, Europe and South America) elected Obama over McCain as the new president of America. In 17 of the 22 countries people expected that the relations between the world and the United States will improve if Obama would go into office. Other polls done by Le Figaro, a French quality magazine and by a national Russian surveying team all came to the same conclusion: in French as in Russia as in the rest of the world, Obama would win the presidency.
What all these countries do is first of all looking at what would be the best for their own country and for their global relations, and by doing so most of them feel like the best choice is Obama. This, again, is because to them Obama stands for a new administration, a new and different America. They see opportunities in Obama that they do not see in McCain. All this makes it that people want to know more about Obama. Media wise he sells like no other. Obama is news, McCain is not.
Media all over the world are biased, as they are in America. Everybody is looking out for their own best interest. There is no point in keeping on talking about the fact that the media are biased and if they should or shouldn’t be, because they just are. It’s a fact we need to accept because there is just not any escape from it. What we need to do is deal with it in the best possible way. It’s our own responsibility to make sure that we become as fully informed as we can be. We should not limit our self to just one media outlet, instead we should look everywhere. It’s perfectly fine to watch Fox, as long as you mix it up from time to time with other networks like CNN, NBC, ABC and so on. The same goes for magazines and newspapers. Variety in outlets means variety in information and this way we get ‘the best of both worlds’.
In the media age that we’re living in, we’re being spoiled with all our possibilities: every type of media is now just a button or a mouse click away. We have to acknowledge that we are now our own biggest ‘gatekeeper’. It’s up to us to educate ourselves.
We should rock the vote, but do so while being as informed as possible. Don’t bias yourself.
For more information on the polls:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/09/09/2360240.htm?section=world
http://timescorrespondents.typepad.com/charles_bremner/2008/09/barack-obama-th.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSLA49136220080910?feedType=RSS&feedName=politicsNews&rpc=22&sp=true
A lot of people around me seemed shocked to here this, some of them nodded in disagreement others seemed glad to hear so. The next logic question seemed to be: Why? Why are they favoring Obama? Her answer was that to the Middle East Obama stands for change, for new opportunities. Middle Eastern people also seem to feel closer to Obama, they feel like they can relate more to him. Not only by being a person of color and having a Muslim background, but also by being a Democrat Obama is in no way comparable to president Bush, something that McCain is. With the war in Iraq, the U.S. troops in Afghanistan and so on, Bush has seriously damaged the reputation of America in the Middle East. Of course the Middle Eastern people are going to be ruling for the candidate they feel has their best interest at hand, which in this case is Obama.
The point that I am trying to make is that this is not an incident on its own. Internationally as nationally, this media bias towards Obama is quite a common phenomenon. According to a recent BBC poll people across the world want to see Obama in the White House. All the 22 countries that were involved in this poll (these countries ranged from Australia to India, across Africa, Europe and South America) elected Obama over McCain as the new president of America. In 17 of the 22 countries people expected that the relations between the world and the United States will improve if Obama would go into office. Other polls done by Le Figaro, a French quality magazine and by a national Russian surveying team all came to the same conclusion: in French as in Russia as in the rest of the world, Obama would win the presidency.
What all these countries do is first of all looking at what would be the best for their own country and for their global relations, and by doing so most of them feel like the best choice is Obama. This, again, is because to them Obama stands for a new administration, a new and different America. They see opportunities in Obama that they do not see in McCain. All this makes it that people want to know more about Obama. Media wise he sells like no other. Obama is news, McCain is not.
Media all over the world are biased, as they are in America. Everybody is looking out for their own best interest. There is no point in keeping on talking about the fact that the media are biased and if they should or shouldn’t be, because they just are. It’s a fact we need to accept because there is just not any escape from it. What we need to do is deal with it in the best possible way. It’s our own responsibility to make sure that we become as fully informed as we can be. We should not limit our self to just one media outlet, instead we should look everywhere. It’s perfectly fine to watch Fox, as long as you mix it up from time to time with other networks like CNN, NBC, ABC and so on. The same goes for magazines and newspapers. Variety in outlets means variety in information and this way we get ‘the best of both worlds’.
In the media age that we’re living in, we’re being spoiled with all our possibilities: every type of media is now just a button or a mouse click away. We have to acknowledge that we are now our own biggest ‘gatekeeper’. It’s up to us to educate ourselves.
We should rock the vote, but do so while being as informed as possible. Don’t bias yourself.
For more information on the polls:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/09/09/2360240.htm?section=world
http://timescorrespondents.typepad.com/charles_bremner/2008/09/barack-obama-th.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSLA49136220080910?feedType=RSS&feedName=politicsNews&rpc=22&sp=true
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