KEEP US INFORMED

The economy continues to be the number one issue in the United States.This is a problem that should and will certainly be address (according to this analysis in the PBS network) in the next six months.  Surrounding this problem is a disagreement on how exactly Congress plans to do that. 

The two major factors are tax cuts and the debt ceiling.  Obama says he wants to keep the tax cuts for the middle class but not for the wealthy.  Republicans want the tax cuts to be extended to the wealthy as well.  With a split congress, compromise seems to be the only option in order to get anything done.  I think it is crucial for journalists to stay on top of this because Americans are desperate, they want solutions to their problems and they want to know who to hold accountable if things go worse, or who to celebrate if things improve.  

A thorough coverage on this subject should also let us know how the politicians we elected are responding to us.  What we need to hear less of is which Senator or Representative had affair, and those sorts of things irrelevant to our country.

Unemployment, a consequence of the economy, should also be covered.  This is really important because thousands of people are depending on it to survive and because making any changes to the benefits would impact the economy.  Whether it would be good or bad will probably be debated, but journalists should maintain the public informed.

I definitely think Healthcare should continue to be covered because apparently Republicans are trying to repeal it.  The Healthcare reform would affect everyone and the public should be kept informed of any changes.  It is also important because of what it symbolizes.  Healthcare represents Obama’s achievement as a president.  If it gets repealed, Obama’s success would be threatened.

Social security should also be covered with accuracy.   Whether or not retirement age should be raised, is one of the questions surrounding this issue.  Any changes and even no changes to the current social security system will impact everyone in the future.  Therefore it is something to take seriously and give importance to.

Another less conventional, but equally important issue is the securing of the border and immigration reform.  Immigration reform has been broadly covered, especially after the Arizona laws, and should continue to be covered because it has proven to be crucial for lining up state rights vs. federal rights. 

Border security has not been treated properly; most of the focus was on securing it to prevent illegal immigration.  It could have been because of the elections and journalists wanting to expose who was pro and who was con.  Now that they have passed I hope journalists can start focusing on the elements that really matter: drug and human trafficking.   This article from BBC News explores drug trafficking and the drug War in Mexico from Mexico’s president, Felipe Calderon’s point of view.

Journalists and campaign contributions

Keith Olbermann is MSNBC’s most prominent host and gets paid for expressing his opinions on his show “Countdown with Keith Olbermann”.  His suspension from the show for making political campaign contributions raises several questions within journalism. 

The first one I would like to explore it’s the most direct one: should journalist be allowed to make campaign contributions?

If today’s journalism was the ideal journalism which complies with the rules of objectivity, the answer would be a flat NO.   An article from Politico.com emphasizes NBC ‘s stand on the subject, stating that they consider it a breach of journalistic independence to contribute to the candidates they cover. It is reasonable to believe that engaging in political activities such as making campaign contributions can distract the reporter and cause him/her to be biased.  It would be an appropriate rule, although inhumane.  And I say inhumane because I think that journalists, more than anyone else, stimulate their ideology and feel drawn to whatever party they identify themselves with.   Journalists are privileged with access to information that every other citizen does not get, and I think that the more informed you are the more you like or dislike a political party.

However, today’s journalism is becoming more and more partisan.  You don’t have to be a journalist to notice that Fox News broadcasts its news from a conservative point of view and that MSNBC does the same for the liberal ideology.  Both are very popular and reach millions of people across the country.  What does this say about us?  That we are becoming narrow-minded and sticking to the ideas that we already have.  I think this has contributed to the divisiveness of the country.  The conservatives are only turning more conservative and the liberals more liberals.  Why? In part because we have a respected and prominent anchor reinforcing our ideas and encouraging the rejection of everything else. 

If news channels clearly represent an ideology, and thus are biased, why do they have a problem with their employees making campaign contributions?  At least the folks from Fox News are not pretending to be objective, for their employees are free to make political campaign contributions, and their employees include politicians themselves, for example Sarah Palin.   I find it absurd for MSNBC to prohibit their opinion journalists to make campaign contributions.  What’s worse is that permission to do so can be granted upon approval from superiors.   Really?  So based upon what?  This just makes the whole thing more suspicious.

 This matter was covered by PBS Newshour and some interesting points came out.  One was the idea that perhaps there are new ethics in journalism.  One of the guests in the show, Geneva Overholser, director of the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, said: “Is only when he puts his money where his mouth is when he is misbehaved.”  It is certainly how it seems.

           

Mosque on 2010 political campaigns

After the ‘’Ground Zero Mosque’’ controversy emerged, it seems as if politicians care less about their people and more about winning. As a citizen, I would expect my representative to at least promise to address some of the most prominent issues.  Instead, some are coming forward with absurd campaign ads that say nothing about them and just launch ungrounded accusations toward their opponents. 

                In the case of Renee Ellmers, Republican fighting for a seat in the House of Representatives for North Carolina-2, her campaign ad focuses solely on the Ground Zero Mosque.  The advertisement techniques are very impressive.  Starting with the audio, the buzz words ‘’victory mosques’’ create a false conception of the mosque in New York as a mosque the terrorists will build as physical proof of their conquest of America.   The ad fails to provide convincing evidence that terrorists, and not peaceful Muslims, are behind the construction of the mosque. 

Second, the images in the ad are also quiet interesting.  When speaking of the Muslims’ conquests, paintings illustrating warfare come up.  There is one that caught my attention, the one showing buildings on fire, very reminiscent of the airplane crash on the Twin Towers.  Also, the ad depicts monumental Mosques, nothing like what the mosque inside the community center will be. 

The ad concludes with Ellmers saying ‘’There will never be a mosque at Ground Zero.’’  This is probably the most accurate statement in the ad, because the Mosque wouldn’t be at Ground Zero, but two blocks away from it.  According to an article from Britannica, Ellmers seemed to be far behind her opponent, Democrat Bob Etheridge, which forced her to play her nastier card.

The National GOP Trust PAC launched its own ad, calling on Americans to join them in the effort of ‘’killing the Ground Zero Mosque.’’  This is a very graphic ad, and once again, it doesn’t bother to make a distinction between Muslims and terrorists, it actually implies that the Muslims behind the project are terrorists. It portrays the mosque as ‘’a monument of their victory and an invitation for war.’’  It points fingers to the ultimate Democratic leader, President Obama, for not doing anything to stop it. 

It is evident that politicians are taking advantage of the national attention the mosque near Ground Zero has gotten.  There are numerous issues at local and federal levels that could be address, yet somehow the upcoming elections have made a NY issue the center of many political campaign ads. Politicians conveniently turn to this issue in an attempt to distract voters from personal faults or incompetency.

A slap in the Face

               

                If the net neutrality that we enjoy today is replaced with a Tier system by the internet providers, the essence of this information medium would be lost.  The internet became globally adopted and grew so rapidly because of the infinite variety of content.  It provides space for everything, from the smallest localized things, to the largest worldwide concepts, such as music.  The internet’s success can also be attributed to the convenience it provides.  For example, it outperforms libraries with its ability to make information available much faster.  Perhaps the most important thing is that the internet has become a standard tool and having access to it has gone from a commodity to a necessity.

                College students can’t live without the internet.  Not only do we use it for entertainment, to lay back after all the stress, but also to do our research and meet our obligations.  Some of us use it to access online classes or class material.  So far, this has been quiet convenient for a lot students who work and/or have children.  Therefore, any changes to the internet would affect us tremendously.

                An article from The New York Times mentions that some envision a public Internet and  a  “private one with faster lanes and expensive tolls.”  The first thing that comes to my mind, as a student who has taken an online class before, is how would that affect my classes?  I wonder whether online classes would become more expensive since UH would need to pay a fee to keep getting its content downloaded at a high speed.  I would still have the option to take a hybrid class instead. But what about those students whose only method of getting an education is via online classes?  We all know tuition is very expensive and a lot of students barely manage to cover the costs. 

                Tuition is a very sensitive issue for many students.  My guess is that it would eventually increase for everyone.  Universities provide internet services to their students, which are included in the tuition fees.  If their internet service becomes more expensive, they will pass those extra expenses to us.  

Money is not the only issue, nor the most important one.  To me the most important thing is the free flow of information.  We already have a filtered medium of information, the TV.  Even cable is filtered and has limited content and thus limited points of view.  The internet has no limits, and abandoning net neutrality would impose them for the first time.  As an article from PBS points out, if providers are going to start regulating content, not only would the speed be jeopardized, but its accessibility at all.

Changing the internet looks like a profitable idea for the Internet providers.  For the public, it looks like a slap in the face.  The internet as we have been enjoying it, would no longer be free, nor cheap, nor convenient, and perhaps not even as valuable.

               

               

What you won't hear about Sharia

A  misconception on Sharia law has been developed.  The recent debate over a community center that will have a mosque, near ground zero, has opened the space for all kind of ideas and lies. The public has been bombarded with radical examples. Opponents, who either don’t understand Sharia law  or benefit from arousing fear in the public, have been cherry picking and generalizing implementations of  Sharia law.  Some even assert that  there is a secret Muslim plan to impose Sharia law in America.  This idea is plausible to those who haven’t taken the moral responsibilty of learning about Islam, and yet prejudice their use of Sahria law.

  Religions are complex and I do not attempt to expose a thorough research on Sharia or Islam, but rather bring forth elements of Sharia law that have been marginalized by politicians, the media, and the public.  I am open to corrections.

Sharia law is an enforced guide for Muslims.  It indicates how a Muslim should carry out all aspects of his/her life, from the spiritual to the political.  It is derived from the Qur’an and the Sunna, which is a compilation of the prophet Muhammad’s life, his teachings, and his verdicts.  All Muslims abide it, however its interpretention,and consequently, its implementation varies.

While at first glance it seems as if Islam is the most united religion,a deeper look indicates that schools of Islam come to play the role of denominations, giving it a sense of disunity.  Some sources of reference, such as Wikipedia, classify schools of Islam as denominations, but scholars usually stick to the title of schools within Islam.  This might be because each school accepts the validity of the others.  One specific example is found in the article “Islam and the United States: Streams of Convergence, Strands of Divergence” by Ali A. Mazrui.  In it he makes a broad classification of Islam into three main schools, the Orthodox, Modernist, and Liberal.

Orthodox Islam is the most literal in its interpretation of the Qur’an and the most traditionalistic in general matters.  This means that in most cases those who most frequently practice the stoning of adulters and mutilation of thieves as forms of punishment, usually belong to this school. In the article its philosophy is cleverly summed up by stating that their emphasis is on a “God of Justice”(pg.810).

Modernist Islam focuses on the convergence of Islam and modern science; and rationalism.  Most theorists of the Islamisation of Knowledege are Modernist Muslims, according to the article. To them, God is a “God of Enlightment.”(pg.810)

Liberal Islam focuses on the ethical aspects of Islam.  This school consideres that Islam should be updated so that its interpretation of Sharia law fits our time.  The most extreme hudud, or physical punishments established by Sharia, should be left in the past, or reformed to be more humane.  This school also advocates for equality among the genders.  To them, “God is a God of Compassion” (pg.810)

More information on Islam and Sharia law can be found in this article from BBC News.  It is a sympathetic view of Sharia and features a British Muslim’s perspective on it, including discussion on the most controversial aspects of the law.

Even if one disagrees on any or all aspects of the religion or Sharia law, and especially if one embraces American values, respect is owed to Islam and Muslims.   A lot of people are confusing respect with approval and feel that unless hostility is used against Muslims, Sharia law will soon be implemented upon us.   Endless argumens can be made against this crazy theory some politicians deliberately disseminate.  If Muslims have a secret plan to take over the U.S. and implement Sharia law upon Americans, why are the terrorists at war with us? Why do they spend years planning their attacks, and invest  millions of dollars in their missions, when they are quietly and effortlessly already conquering the United States?!  The answer is because they are not. 

Muslims are not conquering the U.S., and they are not trying to.  Radical groups are our enemies, and the ones we should be focusing on.  Disunity within the nation makes us more vulnerable to attacks.  Ifsome  politicians and some of the media are willing to compromise the security of the nation over their respective gains, the public should refute such attitudes and come together as a nation to fight terrorism.

Iindividuals whose image of Islam is that of a barbarous entity headed by terrorists, should make a genuine effort to educate themselves on Islam and the religion’s values and purpose.

What really caused the controversy

By now everyone knows there is a controversy surrounding the building of a mosque near ground zero, but has anyone wondered why?  And I mean the real reason why, not what can be heard from the media. 

What we hear on the surface is anchors and politicians arguing whether or not it is sensitive to build a mosque two blocks away from ground zero, whether Muslims should have that right, and what the American people think about it.  But it has not been as clean as it sounds.  The media has been corrupting information through the use of buzz words, such as “ground zero mosque”, creating the mental picture of a mosque planted right on top of where the World Trade Center towers once stood, which is completely false.  Politicians on their part are abusing the publicity of the building of the mosque to demagogue the issue, armed with the timing of the 9^th anniversary of 9/11.

 Both entities are playing with fire.  They are facilitating the division of the nation, and creating a hostile environment between faiths.  They are putting their own interests before the interests of the nation.   The media wants more rating, while politicians see this as an opportunity for free campaigning for the upcoming elections and future political ambitions.  

It is sad that a lot of news channels are merely functioning as the venue for all this turmoil.  What is even worse is that some, such as Fox news, allow unfounded statements to circle around their channel without challenging them, as if silently agreeing.  They also give room to illogical politicians who make absurd statements, as in the case of former House Speaker Newt Ginrich.  He dared compare Muslims to Nazis.  He didn’t say radical Muslims who are terrorists, he generalized and compared the entire Muslim population to Nazis.  How sick.  Furthermore, Sean Hannity stated that the Imam wanted to make America sharia law compliant, emphasizing the radical aspects and interpretations of the system.  He denies the public the right to know that sharia law is agreed upon by all Muslims, but that its requirements are interpreted differently according to denominations, such as moderate , liberals, etc.   He has his own personal agenda of supporting the ideology he believes in.

Politicians could show more intelligence and make logical and respectful opinions.  The media could stop allowing this issue to be a manifestation of the mean world syndrome, where it has become a consensus that Americans blame Islam for 9/11 and that’s why the mosque is so controversial.  But the public can also do its part.  We as citizens should learn to question our sources and listen to different point of views.  People should be aware that if we only stick to our traditional sources, chances are we merely confirming what we already believe, and won’t usually get all sides of the story.

To conclude, I would like to go back to the question at the top:  What is really the cause of the controversy?  The answer is in each and every paragraph.  The media and politicians are in a vicious circle of mutualism where the media uses politicians on their interviews for ratings, and politicians use the media for campaigning.  If neither had seen in the building of the mosque, because of the timing of the 9/11 anniversary, a potential resource, the issue might not have been but a zoning issue.  After all, it is primarily a community center with a mosque, there are other mosques near the area, and overall there is not an appreciable symbolic meaning.  Has anyone considered that perhaps the Muslim community, after being so discriminated in the post 9/11 years, is simply trying to restore their dignity? This could explain why they refuse to move their community center to another location.  It is true that the families of the 9/11 victims have been tremendously hurt, but it is also true that numerous Muslims across the country have been mistreated for something they did not do, or support.

A tragedy time can't leave behind

The 9th anniversary of 9/11 is very near. As that lamented event grows more distant from our present each year, its significance and effect become clearer to me. I was still a child when the attack happened. At 12 years old, I knew something terrible had happened because some malignant characters had killed hundreds of people, but I didn’t understand the magnitude of the effects of that attack. I believed the threat would be temporary. I thought no one was more powerful than the U.S. That the U.S. would simply get them back, maybe even go to war, but would certainly win. I still thought there was a winner in a war.


My experience was a little bit different than most citizens since I had only been in this country for two years. It was enough time for me to allow my identity to adjust to a new life. It wasn’t enough time to get a good sense of who the U.S. was or to integrate significantly with its culture. Still, the U.S. was my new home, and in it lived brothers and sisters of all cultures. It took a really graphic documentary to hit the rock bottom of my emotions. I felt emptiness mixed with pain, fear, shock, and other indescribable feelings. The documentary was a compilation of raw videos from the citizens who witnessed the attack. It was hard to digest the idea that I was not watching a movie, that all the panic and terror shown on the film was completely real. I had never seen someone die right before my eyes. That day I saw dozens. Although not at first hand, the video allowed me to witness how people jumped from the Twin Towers killing themselves in the act. Our natural instinct tells us to fight death. For someone to be forced to suicide seeking a less painful death or in an act of panic is simply inhumane.

As a child, in Mexico, my image of the U.S. was that of an invincible country. When I migrated here and learned a little bit about its history and international status, I discovered that indeed the U.S. is a very powerful nation. However, my concept of this country was limited to the mind of a 12 year old. It is now as an adult that I have a more complex concept of this nation, but this nation was not the same after the terrorist’s attacks of 9/11. That’s why I say I only know the post 9/11 America. Unlike all the adults who lived through the attacks, I don’t feel like I have a point of reference, a time that I could compare to the present. Most of my life in the U.S. has been spent aware of its vulnerability to an attack. Ironically, and ashamed to admit, I had not been as conscious to the fact that all this time we had been at war. Probably because it was not fought in our soil, the media doesn’t give it much coverage, and because no immediate relative was fighting the war. The government says the war is over, but as a journalism student, I’m learning to hear past what is being said. Part of my task and personal goal is to draw conclusions and opinions only after being well informed. As I learn more and take a deeper look into the 9/11 attacks and the war, its significance amplifies and I lament more. It is a tragedy that time can’t leave behind.


My most sincere condolences to the families of all the fallen soldiers throughout this war, and the families of the people who lost their lives September 11, 2001.