I glanced at a certain Johannesburg newspaper recently, and saw that it has cheerfully started putting single-word names next to photographs of “celebrities”.
For instance, there’s a pic of Robert de Niro, and below it isn’t a caption saying why the pic is there. Instead, there is a bright, colourful word: “ROBERT!”. And a pic of a stupid slut famous for two things only, being rich and getting fornicated on video, gets the same treatment: “PARIS!”.
Hmm, this is journalism for dummies only. Or did I miss a meeting?
As you can guess, we’re going to read some newspapers this week — and show you how to find your own news, bookmark it and within 10 minutes of scanning get a cross-section of what’s important in the world, as far as you’re concerned. No dead tree’s needed to give you the news.
Down in Antarctica, they’re just real happy that they can see the sun for the first time in about four months. Read the odd focus for the inhabitants of the various nations’ stations at the bottom of the world, at 70 South.
In Hong Kong, the local focus is interesting — “Bush under siege”, which isn’t quite the spin of the Western media. See South China Morning Post. It’s horse racing and finance that are big news, presumably for the foreigners, at The Standard.
In Sweden, nothing much at all is happening on the local front, as can be seen at The Local (even Radio Sweden seems far more interested in other countries than its own — look at Radio Sweden).
Given the apocalyptic destruction of Hurricane Katrina, and what seems to be a deliberate United States government decision to do nothing for five days while its citizens died and starved, let’s look at local Louisiana newspapers to get a sense of street-level reaction. To start with, at ground zero, is Biloxi, Mississippi, and The Sun Herald. It’s a blur of multiple focuses at Nola: Everything New Orleans. Things are a little more organised at nearby Baton Rouge — read The Advocate. Also in Lafayette, read the Lafayette Daily Advertiser.
Read this ongoing blog from New Orleans, by an employee of a data centre: The Interdictor.
At the heart of the US government in Washington, the newspapers are spinning the idea that it was the local authorities who caused the rescue delays (whereas those of us who have been watching streaming live TV off the net have seen the near-hysterical and sometimes profane outbursts of anger from local politicians, struggling to get any decent reaction from the Federal Emergency Management Agency or the federal government itself). Feel the spin as the newspaper suggests that it’s not the Bush Administration’s Fault.
As a counterpoint to this almost disinterested approach, read another Washington paper, the Afro — and in particular, an article titled Mayor Says Yes, White House Says No.
To watch live streaming local TV, showing the chaos, try WWL TV or use Yahoo!.
Gear change. Let’s take Zimbabwe as an example of how in-depth you can get via the net to observe local versions of the news — and reality.
MWeb is tiptoeing through its idea of “the news” (also known as “news that President Robert Mugabe won’t stamp on them for”). See the careful choices for “news headlines” at MWeb Zimbabwe Homepage. And I noticed the banner advert for United Kingdom-based solicitors offering a variety of services, starting with “immigration”, at Zim Daily, whereas it’s a bright flashing “Live and work in the USA!” banner ad, at the clearly tabloid New Zimbabwe.
They’re trying real hard to give the news at The Standard, whereas they seem to have given up on the idea almost completely at The Chronicle.
And in the Financial Gazette, the government’s plans to take away passports of those it considers to be “enemies of the state” as well as those with “foreign” parents, thus trapping them in the country forever, only enters on paragraph five of an article titled Attack on Democracy.
I notice that Yvonne Chaka Chaka doesn’t mind the money they’re paying her to perform in Zimbabwe. Read the review Chaka Chaka Spices Up Show.
As to where Zim got the money to pay the International Monetary Fund, well, the governor of the central bank is offering a cup of tea to those who’d like to come and be shown where the money came from — and mentions everything from Mars to Democratic Republic of Congo diamonds along the way. Read a financial version of the sinking of the Titanic being re-enacted quietly, in paragraph after paragraph, at IMF Paid.
(To show how business quietly adjusts to social mayhem, have a look at the prices at a Zimbabwean internet service provider. I notice that, gee, apart from an initial set-up cost of Z$97 500, I can get a “premium” 56k modem internet connection for just Z$391 230 per month at Africa Online.)
Everyone has his or her own version of what constitutes “the news” — and the net itself provides a nearly dizzying collection of choices to find it.
For instance, to see what an ex-Hitler Youth-member-turned-chief-poobah of a large popular religion wants you to know — which, from the look of it, isn’t that much — there’s the online Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano. Naturally, it has its own propaganda arm, er, “news agency” — Zenit: The World Seen from Rome.
Many local radio stations, for instance, simply take stories off a couple of news-distribution systems, rewrite them slightly and read them on air — in between detailing whatever the latest local depravities are. Bypass this by going directly to the news sources yourself: The Associated Press and Reuters.
To make your own daily news-gathering bookmarks is fairly easy to do — 10 minutes of speedy reading gets you a very good global overview. It’s not only the raw facts of news that are interesting; it’s how these are described and portrayed in different local regions of the world that adds to a deeper understanding of how “they” (whoever “they” are) are seeing the news.
Go to the following site and find the countries and provinces that you’re interested in. You’ll find literally thousands of newspapers from almost every country of the world, waiting for you to make a “Newspapers” folder in your bookmarks, and adding your favourites: Online Newspapers. For still more choices, including global magazines, websites and newspapers, see World Newspapers.
For 6 034 newspaper front pages, see The Paperboy. And to cover the last few that the previous don’t have, there is All Newspapers.
Until the next time, if sellers of dead trees don’t get me.
Quick picks
Given the massive chaos and deaths this week in Louisiana, it just doesn’t feel good to me to be choosing frivolous sites for quick picks. Sorry. Instead, learn something.