Monday, September 19, 2005
Richard Landes writes at History News Network:
The Medievalist Who Is Watchdogging the Media
Our opening dossier – Pallywood – is an exercise in pointing out that the emperor is naked. Evidence we will make available to the cyber-public suggests that our news desks regularly receive staged scenes of fighting and injury filmed by Palestinian cameramen using Western equipment. Rather than delete them or fire the cameramen for gross violations of journalistic standards, editors cut the obviously fake parts and run a medley of plausible sight-bytes as real news.
If any graduate student in medieval history came with a draft that treated its sources as credulously as our media have done in this case, he or she would not make it through the first semester...
... What’s going on here? Is this a joke? Judging from the smiles of both the actors and the cameramen that follow successful “takes,” yes. And the joke is on us.
How long has Pallywood been going on? We cannot say, partly because, so far, the MSM will not re-examine their own rushes, nor let outsiders see them. But the material we have suggests a widespread and common practice that probably began in the 1980s and continues today.
Now, it is one thing for Palestinian journalists to behave in this manner. Many openly admit that the media represent a battlefield for them and they subordinate its values to their cause. But why would Western media clean up these fakes and present them as news?...
Update: Wretchard writes about The Second Draft:
...Watch Pallywood. You will laugh, but you may also cry.
DIGG This | del.icio.us | Facebook | Stumble It
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: The Medievalist Who Is Watchdogging the Media.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.solomonia.com/cgi-bin/mt4/mt-renamedtb.cgi/4727
Subscribe to This Thread Without Leaving a Comment
Comment Info and Policy:
1) You must have Javascript enabled in your browser in order to comment (blame the spammers). If you don't know what that is, you're probably fine.
2) HTML is on, so basic html should work. Raw links will be made auto-clickable, too, so even if you don't know html you can just paste in the link and it should work fine. Keep the "http://" in it.
3) Comments are generally unmoderated, which means I don't necessarily agree with the tone and tenor of everything posted. In fact, sometimes people post things they don't really mean just to make other people look bad. The internet is an anonymous place for the most part. That said...
4) I welcome you to post here. I'd love to have your input, agree, disagree or just offer a different data point, really. If I didn't want any participation, I'd turn off comments. Be aware, however, that this blog and the comments section exist for my entertainment. Therefore, I reserve ALL RIGHTS here, including the right to remove any or all comments on nothing more than a whim. Please don't even bother complaining. I'm the one providing the space and the free news and thought buffet. I don't owe anyone anything.
Anyone who posts here will be treated as my guest. That means I'm happy to be polite as a default, but if anyone is rude to the host they'll be unceremoniously shown the door.
It may pay to recall a famous line from the Tom Selleck magnum opus, Mr. Baseball: "Jack-san, you want Yoji's advice about the babes, you come to Yoji with respect."
5) Enjoy your stay!