Media Impresses with Libya Coverage

For a change, the media has been doing an impressive job of covering the recent war in Libya. Today alone I have already seen eleven different headlines about Libya, covering everything from African crticism of the air strike to Obama's decision to take action without Congressional approval.

I believe the media's constant coverage of the situation is extremely important for our country. America has been involved in several wars since Vietnam, yet due to our volunteer based army and the absence of violence on our homeland, we do not feel it. It is easy to forget that we have been in Iraq for more than seven years now. The media coverage of Libya has brought the nation's attention to the fact that America has now entered another war. Also, the broad variety of covergae which reports not only on the events of the war, but criticisms and positive remarks as well allows for a more informed national conversation. It remains to be seen how long the attention will last.

That being said, I do believe the media is falling short in one particular area. We have discussed the media's consistent failure to ask the right questions. In the case of Libya, the political objectives of the war are extremely ambigious. It's possible that politicans are keeping it this way on purpose, and also possible that the political objectives are difficult to articulate since the war is multilateral operation. If only there was some institution to ask these questions...

Texas Teen Starts New Political Party

Today MSNBC aired a about a teenaged boy from Texas who started his own political party called "United Party":

Check out this great MSN video: Fed up teen starts own political party

While its amazing that this boy has decided to take political action at such a young and the coverage is good for publicity for him and his new party, it seems to me that the story is almost a human interest story, focused less on the possibly legitimate issues the boy takes with our current bi-partisan system, and more on the novelty of the action.

"....Serious. Like BBC Serious."

According to a recent piece published on the Time blog site called "Clinton Applauds Al-Jazeera, Rolls Eyes at US Media," Hilary Clinton praised Al-Jazeera for bringing real news to the globe while America's media is focused on soft-news stories about "dogs and kittens and who is or is not attending the wedding of effete silver-spooned royals". The article notes that during the peak of the protests of Egypt, a huge number of Americans tuned into Al-Jazeera to learn more about the situation, possibly indicating their respect the station receives from Americans, who could turn to other, American news sources. The article also reads, "Sure, Al-Jazeera has the luxury of being serious (its funded by Qatar's petrodollars), but its a seriousness that is catching on and winning respect."

Hmm...is there a lesson here for American news sources? Maybe the public, when it recognizes that something real and big and potentially world-changing is happening not only respects serious news, but seeks it.