Talk about balance. I find the Arab media quite efficient in covering both major & minor events taking place in the region and the world. Yet what I notice is that it also tends to “over” cover events, which means that it floods viewers with an abundance of news that may or may not be relevant to their everyday lives. This, I believe, leads to a general state of boredom and disinterest on the part of the average viewer which could cause partial or total ignorance.
Some argue that the totality of the Arab people have an insatiable appetite for news and especially for news concerning politics. I can agree with that. But I don’t see the need to overwhelm the average viewer with news about say, crackdowns on African militia in some remote African country. I do not see the need to detail such bits of information or the need to “inflate” news just so that some channel can air a 60-minute news show.

I am all for a well-informed average Arab individual. But I am against bombarding the public with irrelevant news. In my opinion, should a channel really desire to broadcast news it should focus on the important issues that affect the lives of its viewers. Should a person desire to gain extra information about the Eskimos, for instance, he or she can refer to books or the internet or some reliable source of information of his/her choice.

At odds with this situation is the case of American public television. I find their news to be a joke. They focus too much on localities and ignore the rest of the world and that leaves little space for the average viewer to gain any awareness of what’s happening in the world in general. Some “Naked Tickler” made the news during my stay in Michigan. Missing children and fender benders were also hot topics. Again, I am all for going local. But I am against going local all the way.

I suppose there should be some balance in the news. I can hardly think of any reason the media could have to attain either a bored viewer who doesn’t watch anymore or an ignorant viewer who has no world knowledge.

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This entry was posted on Friday, September 2nd, 2005 at 11:40 pm and is filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.