Letters to the Editor
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-- quickstrategy @10:18 AM
You're right about the visiting Nepalese Gurka, he would be be exposed to all the things you mentioned. And you're right that it should be natural for us to be curious about the citizens of another country, especially before waging war on them.
But, aside from the political election cycle coverage of 'the little guy' our media's relentless fascination is with our individual leader, not the population. Even the 'little guy' is really only compelling to our media inasmuch as they decide who 'the big guy' is.
When the little guy protested the war it didn't mean shit to the media, and when the little guy didn't buy into Bushs' social security scam month after month there was no outcry about it from the media and when the war became unpopular with even more of the little guys nothing changed.
And the media's view of other countries is seen through that same filter - the individual leader of the country. But even worse, it's the individual foreign leader in relation to our leader.
Do they agree with our president or don't they? Name any leader of any country and, if the average citizen recognizes them at all, they can probably identify only one thing about them - whether they are 'with us or against us'. And that, for the most part is because that is the extent of our media's interest.
Take Spain's Aznar for example. He didn't mean anything to our press except as a supporter of Bush's war. Nothing else was explored about that leader, and when he was ousted for lying to his public, it was the public who received the negative press, not Aznar. The fact that his people rejected him didn't have any significance to our media - only the fact that he had stood by our president. Aznar was only important in a supporting role, and the Spanish citizens not at all.
Every other leader in the world is just a character actor in our leading man's movie. And the citizens are simply extras.