Letters to the Editor
IanIRL
Published Letters: 25 Editor's Choice: 11
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The press as a bad little boy...
[Read the article: The Moroccan street: No to violence, no to Western disrespect]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What struck me about the article was the analogy of the Government as a father, and the press as a bad little boy that ruins the neighbourhood. Personally, I believe in the liberal ideal, that it should be the other way around - the government is the bad little boy who ruins the neighbourhood and its up to the press to watch and call them them on it. This is a fundamentally different viewpoint and I suspect it is the main reason for all the misunderstanding, offence and violence. It seems that many Muslims simply cannot understand WHY the governments of the West can't stop or punish the media involved, and simply cannot accept that governments would not be behind it in some way. The notion of a free press and a more open market of ideas and opinions (not wholly free or open I grant you) that western democracies enjoy is still a strange idea to them.
The headline also bothered me; "No to violence, no to Western disrespect"... It still seems to be the policy of Salon to conflate the printing of the cartoons and the violent reaction as somehow being morally equivalent. Like the brilliant (and brilliantly infuriating) Independent writer, Robert Fisk, the run of articles that Salon has published on this is squarely on the side of this sort of cultural relativist hogwash. For a magazine which has published eloquent defences of freedom of the press and freedom of speech on issues in its own country (as well as much material which could be described as harsh and offensive to Rublicans, Scientologists and Fundamentalist Christians) I would have expected a more balanced outlook.
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Maybe Eddie and Steve should get back together...
[Read the article: When good comedians go bad]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The last time either of them were genuinely funny was in Bowfinger, one of my favourite comedies of the nineties. To me, it has bite, but is also generous, warm hearted in the best sense, and utterly hilarious all the way through (the dog in the high heels is just classic). Martin is good (his script is better) but Murphy playing twin brothers is brilliant.
On second thoughts, going on their current output, I am not sure I want them to sully that film. Here's hoping Murphy can save his career with Dreamgirls this Christmas...
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Cynicism
[Read the article: All the news stuff that's fit to print]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]One of the things which is not addressed in the article as much as it should be, is the increasing cynicism and discomfort that a lot of teenagers and twentysomethings feel towards Big Media. With an ever increasing monopoly, a shrill and thoroughly polarised columnist culture which has largely abandoned reason for empty pontificating and the horrible errors of judgement and pack mentality which continue to dog major news outlets (eg Whitewater and WMDs), is it any wonder that people of my generation have largely tuned out?
I graduated from journalism 3 years ago completely disgusted with the industry, and nothing in the last few years has changed my opinion of it. I still avidly follow the news, but when major reporters and outlets continually lie, cover-up and do every thing they can to bury stories which do not toe their publisher's line, it becomes difficult to tell people my age to follow major stories. Because of this, a lot of younger people realise that you have to read across a broad spectrum of media in order to make sense of the big issues. This requires a lot of will and time which, surprise, people just don't have.
We know that stories about Britney, Brad and Angelina are largely bull, planted by PR agents - but there is a certain comfort is being able to read these stories and not have to care that they are made up, or embroidered to a ridiculous extent. This becomes far more frustrating when you read a broadsheet or a tabloid reporting on a major story like Iraq and you know that what you are getting is being run through so many ideological, political and economic filters that it becomes difficult to believe you are getting anything resembling the full story.