Tuesday, March 22, 2011

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...

3 comments:

  1. I noticed the overwhelming coverage on Libya as soon as I emerged from my Purim candy coma, but I couldn't help think that maybe it's too much. Do you think people will get overwhelmed and stop watching the news altogether? I know that when I saw the overwhelming front page of nytimes.com I had a strong desire to switch to Hulu instead - do you think people will just stop paying attention to the news?

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  2. The question of how long is America's attention span in regards to Libya is a very important question. According to the newspaper editors who are focused on their bottom lines, it will last as headline worthy until something else more newsworthy or able to sell more copies takes its place. That being said, it is important for the American public to be cognizant of the fact that America is involved in another country's foreign affairs. We must ask if there are ulterior motives behind America's involvement, such as Qaddafi's oil reserves.

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  3. I do think eventually the public will lost interest in the headlines and when the media does occasionally mention Libya, people will say things like, "Oh, we're still there?" However, I hope the media coverage will facilitate a national awareness that we're in the war and hopefully motivate people to put pressure on the government to get out, should we stay much longer than planned. Also, like Ezra suggests, hopefully it will make people question our true motives and perhaps even our grand strategy for foreign policy.

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