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Coverage of Terrorism
lieves in freedom at home, or the free
speech, or the freedom of religion,
outside it believes in the freedom to
humiliate, the freedom to export terror.
And the freedom to humiliate is a
very important thing because that’s
what really leads to the rage.”
Agree or not with Roy, it is hard to
deny that most Americans are confused
about why “they” would afflict such
terror on the freedom-loving “us.” “I
think most Americans are clueless when
it comes to the politics and ideology
and religion in [the Muslim] world
and, in that sense, I think we do bear
some responsibility,” Boston Globe
Editor Martin Baron told the Los Angeles
Times’s Shaw. “In consequence, we
are not only less informed about what’s
happening in the world but about how
others see us.”
This situation prompted
Globalvision to create its News Network
of international reporting. Our
motives for acting arose from both our
personal interest in trying
to draw more attention to
the plight of the world’s dispossessed
and in our
company’s interest in tapping
into a forgotten niche
that might serve as a lucrative
business opportunity.
For 15 years, we had mostly
focused on producing “inside-out”
TV programming
about a changing world.
Now, thanks to the Internet,
there is a distribution channel to add
international content to an all too limited
global news mix.
In 1999, Globalvision created
mediachannel.org—the largest online
media issues network in the world—to
respond to the key role media plays in
this age of globalization. I serve as
executive editor of this site and write a
weekly column called “The News Dissector”
in which we watch the media as
it watches the world, offering media
news, analysis, criticism, research and
discussion from monitors, observers,
journalists, commentators and critics.
After September 11, and as the war
in Afghanistan made clear, there was a
hunger for more perspectives.
Globalvision launched a test of its new
News Network by posting stories from
125 affiliates in 85 countries, including
a daily column on news about the news
with criticism and reports about how
the story is being covered in different
countries, with a focus on what is being
left out. To assemble this, I rely on the
help of new WebLog technology and
also draw content from our
mediachannel.org network of more
than 800 affiliated news sites as well as
from links provided by the millions of
readers/users who come to our Web
site. Positive responses we’ve received,
and the spurt in traffic we’ve observed,
confirm that there is a market and an
audience for this blend of international
coverage and media criticism. Our site
might also be filling some voids left
with the shrinkage of the Gannettfunded
Freedom Forum worldwide, as
well as the collapse of Brill’s Content/
Inside.com.
Our interest is not in criticizing coverage
for its own sake. We are neither
Long before September 11, my
colleagues and I had become
alarmed by the consequences of
America’s media-led isolationism
as it fueled citizens’ ignorance
about the rest of the world.
media makers nor bashers. We present
the information we do as a way of
offering constructive approaches to
improving coverage. For example,
mediachannel.org carries work by a
new British-based group called Reporting
the World, whose work shows how
coverage of the same news can be told
from a perspective of conflict resolution
(the “peace journalism” approach)
just as easily as it can be conveyed
through the prism of “war journalism,”
with its usual emphasis on bombs and
bodybags. In another section of the
site, we offer extensive information
about media policy issues and media
literacy education.
Also, we try to offer strategies and
information that will help journalists
counter our largest media failure—the
lack of context that allows news consumers
to gain clearer understanding
of the background issues and clash of
interpretations. And because our readers
are able to look at so much coverage
by news outlets in other countries—many
of whom report on the
same story on a given day—they are
able to see for themselves the cultural
biases and parochialism that deforms
news coverage worldwide. Hopefully,
it helps them put reporting in this
country in a larger perspective.
Because of the reach of the Internet,
many diverse sources of information
are now available. But despite all the
choices, well advertised, major media
brands remain the primary source of
news and explanation for most citizens.
This presents a problem, since
the crux of these debates—the impact
of past U.S. covert operations and oil
interests, for example—fly below the
radar of most mainstream media outlets.
And in mainstream media
there is a lack of dissenting
perspectives offered.
Media have a major role to
play in reminding us of the
ways in which lives are entwined
and futures are interconnected
worldwide. The
shocking events of September
11 and the response to
them calls our attention to
the deeply institutionalized
failures in foreign policy, defense
strategies, the work of intelligence
agencies and, yes, the U.S. media.
We can call on others to fix the
former, but only journalists, ourselves,
can improve the media institutions we
work for and rely on to strengthen our
democracy. For too long, news organizations
have failed to do this. They can
fail no longer. ■
Danny Schechter, a 1978 Nieman
Fellow, is the executive editor of
Globalvision’s mediachannel.org.
His latest book is “News Dissector:
Passions, Pieces and Polemics, 1960-
2000,” from Akashic Books and
Electronpress.com.
dissector@mediachannel.org
58 Nieman Reports / Winter 2001