And the bad guy this time is...
The world is a bleak place these days with all kinds of conflicts and wars. While I think most people wish to make the world a better place and that we all got along, others seem to want to stir up things and cause problems. These are probably the biggest threat we have against living in some kind of harmony right now.
The story about
target="_blank">Muslims being upset by the new Apple building in New York has been circling the online newspapers. Apparently they were furious that the building bore some resemblance to the sacred Ka'ba in Mecca and though it was an insult to Islam.
I blew my anger fuse when I read that. Thought it was idiotic and way out of line to get offended by a building that had nothing to do with them.
Luckily I started researching a bit more and found out that this story wasn't based on a very strong foundation. It was reported by an organization called the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) which translates Arab speaking web sites and online newspapers. In short, it seems like they found a statement on a web site (they do not say which web site) urging people to react against this insult to Islam. This has since been blown out of proportion.
Reading a bit more and you find that this organization has been accused of trying to stir up things to cause trouble in the past. So now Muslims have been wrongly colored because maybe one idiot wrote something on their web site. Hey, they should be allowed their fair share of insignificant idiots like any other religion without anyone assuming their words are the beliefs of the majority.
So that blew my second fuse and I got angry and irritated at this MEMRI organization. I have been blowing more fuses all day just thinking about this.
This strengthens my suspicion that the media cannot be trusted and that you need to do some checking before getting upset or starting to judge people. The problem is that we cannot use all out time double checking every story we read. Shouldn't the media have some kind of obligations to check their sources? I can promise you that not many will print an update to this story admitting they were wrong since that isn't as juicy as the original story.
Maybe the solution is to only start reading "quality" Norwegian journalism which only put idiotic stories on their front page such as about a dog loosing 30 kilos...
On the positive side ...
I noticed that TechWeb, in your first link, actually make notes of what corrections they make to a story. I don't think I've actually seen that before. Usually a news site will only say "Last edited" or something similar, if they have changed the article -- if they say anything at all ...
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The knuckles! The horrible knuckles!
Yes, that was interesting! At
Yes, that was interesting! At least they are trying even though they don't really say that the case is taken out of proportion.
Bad guys, bad media
Anyone who has been interviewed a few times by newspapers, especially the tabloid ones, should know that what you mean and what they write are two very different things. When you discover this happening to yourself, you start (or should start, at least) getting very suspicious about what the newspaper says about other people. I've come to trust some specific journalists in various newspapers, but I never trust newspapers at large.
It is also a sad fact that Norwegian newspapers are very uniform and biased. They tend to only see one side of the story, especially in international matters. And they all see the same side.
- Eira
I need to pay better attention
I have never really thought about paying attention to who the reporter is. I will do that next time when I am certain the article is accurate. Up until now reporters have been pretty faceless to me.
It would be far better if the Norwegian newspaper took different sides on stories and that might give us a bit more information and possibly cause more press on the newspapers to be gather evidence backing up their side.
I don't know though how this can be made better. Having some governing body which punishes them if they are found to fabricate or publish wrong articles because they didn't do their research. They could give some money (the fine) to charity... Probably one of those things that only works in theory and not in practice:-(.
Hæ Gerður
Núna er reunionið annað kvöld, það hefði verið gaman að sjá þig þar, en þú ert ein af þeim sem eru fullkomlega afsökuð. Þetta verður örugglega mjög skrÃtið og skemmtilegt og örugglega teknar fullt af myndum. :o) við sjáumst vonandi bara sÃðar.
Kveðja Anna Rósa
Mig langar!!!
Eg vildi óska að ég gæti komið, verður örugglega mjög gaman. Endilega setjið myndir sem eru teknar á netið. Væri gaman að sjá hvernig fólk lÃtur út:-).
Eg var alltaf að spá à að reyna að setja upp webcam en það er búið að vera svo mikið að gera:-(.
Vona að það verði gaman hjá ykkur! Já við verðum að hafa annað bekkjarmót eftir nokkur ár!