Sunday, February 12, 2006
Thanks to CNN: Al-Aqsa Is Over!
In the really penetrating journalism I've come to expect from the AP's Mark Lavie we find that Palestinian prisoners have been "pacified" in Ketziot prison because they get to watch CNN, a Jordanian channel and some Israeli stations.
Now, anyone who still bothers to watch CNN knows that CNN usually has the opposite effect on anyone watching its Mid East coverage. Sittie (grandma) has been known to scream expletives during the experience.
How does this hard hitting journalist get his information?
From a magazine for IOF soldiers.
Lavie didn't even interview an Israeli for his story, and we know better than to hope that he'd interview a Palestinian prisoner. No, instead he writes, again just quoting from a magazine article, that it's no longer necessary to put down the prisoners with tear gas.
Lavie also quotes the magazine:
Further "distractions" are planned, the weekly reported — backgammon games, basketball and volleyball.
We find that the goal of the creative commander Lt Col Avi "is to keep prisoners from 'causing trouble and organizing terror attacks from inside the prison.'"
Lavie, in an uncharacteristic burst of professionalism, reports in the last line of the story that there are eight thousand Palestinian prisoners.
There are a myriad of stories that a responsible journalist could have written.
Lavie is obviously not one of them.
Now, anyone who still bothers to watch CNN knows that CNN usually has the opposite effect on anyone watching its Mid East coverage. Sittie (grandma) has been known to scream expletives during the experience.
How does this hard hitting journalist get his information?
From a magazine for IOF soldiers.
Lavie didn't even interview an Israeli for his story, and we know better than to hope that he'd interview a Palestinian prisoner. No, instead he writes, again just quoting from a magazine article, that it's no longer necessary to put down the prisoners with tear gas.
Lavie also quotes the magazine:
Further "distractions" are planned, the weekly reported — backgammon games, basketball and volleyball.
We find that the goal of the creative commander Lt Col Avi "is to keep prisoners from 'causing trouble and organizing terror attacks from inside the prison.'"
Lavie, in an uncharacteristic burst of professionalism, reports in the last line of the story that there are eight thousand Palestinian prisoners.
There are a myriad of stories that a responsible journalist could have written.
Lavie is obviously not one of them.
