It is a great relief to read Healing Iraq after a year of listening to the hysterical blather from CNN and other news channels as they relay news clips from Arab news media.
It didn’t take too much intelligence to see the inconsistencies in the news we were given, but we could only guess at what had actually happened. Now that there are a number of weblogs by Iraqi citizens, we can get a better picture of daily life in today’s Iraq if we wish. It is grim, but more encouaging than I expected
Zeyad, a young dentist, writes of his family, his hopes, and of daily events. In the process, he debunks some of today’s manufactured news. In this account of a bombing incident at his house, he shows how Al-Arabiyah gathers the news. It may confiirm your worst suspicions of the way media in present day Iraq works.
It makes me feel even more strongly that the future of real news gathering lies with weblogs. TV will simply become empty entertainment for selling ideas, cars, fast foods and drugs. Newspapers and magazines will rehash old weblog postings.
We’ll see.