Romeo & Juliet & the AP & Reuters
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Bardseye returns today from a second baby-related hiatus (our little Shakespearean thrives; his powers daily grow) to marry a slice of Romeo and Juliet to the captivating conflict in Iraq.
As the gentle reader will recall, for killing Paris (not the city, which hardly needs to be murdered given its current cultural suicide, but rather Juliet’s undesired fiancé) Romeo was banished to Mantua. His servant Balthasar rode hence in Act V with news of events in Verona, news which put quite a crimp in Romeo’s oddly happy mood:
Rom: “If I may trust the flattering truth of sleep,
My dreams presage some joyful news at hand.
My bosom’s lord sits lightly in his throne,
And all this day an unaccustomed spirit
Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts.”
Enter Romeo’s man, Balthasar.
“News from Verona! How now, Balthasar?
Dost thou not bring me letters from the friar?
How doth my lady?.…”
Bal: “Her body sleeps in Capels’ monument,
And her immortal part with angels lives.
I saw her laid low in her kindred’s vault,
And presently took post to tell it you.
O, pardon me for bringing these ill news.”
Obviously, Shakespeare was warning us in this passage about the Associated Press, our modern-day Balthasar, who rides – too soon! – from Baghdad with front page news of mosques destroyed and civilians set fire to in the streets, news that is later, in quieter pages folded well inside, and just like Balthasar’s news of Juliet’s death, discredited.
Blog readers will already be aware that the sole source for the atrocity described above, and nearly the sole source for sixty news stories detailing Shia attacks on Sunni civilians, is a Baghdad police captain whose existence the AP was for some weeks unable to confirm. He has since been confirmed as a real person, but his sixty stories have not fared as well. The destroyed mosques are standing; no confirmation for the bodies burned in the street – an act that even in today’s Baghdad could be expected to stand out. (Whoops - the latest information now is that the AP story confirming the captain's identity was itself discredited; his existence remains still unconfirmed).
First Senator: “This cannot be,
By no assay of reason: ‘tis a pageant,
To keep us in false gaze.”
Othello, Act I, scene iii
The kafuffle over the captain, however it may be resolved, has revealed a fearful reliance of Western news organizations (whose reporters fear to tread outside the protected green zone) on local Iraqi stringers, who tend to be partisan, and whose reports tend to remain unconfirmed. The longstanding anti-American track record of the major wire services, AP and Reuters, required of news consumers another layer of suspicion.
Meanwhile, the war in Iraq remains a complex, fascinating struggle, one where the US has achieved signal successes alongside the more loudly amplified failures. From Al Qaida’s standpoint, the public relations effort is critical; with outright military success unlikely, their strategy must focus on demoralizing the US voter and taxpayer in order to cause the American effort to be called off by the civilians back home. The willingness AP and Reuters to print whatever their Iraqi stringers tell them is therefore extremely useful to Al Qaida.
It’s worth remembering that Balthasar’s false report is what caused Romeo and Juliet to grasp defeat from the jaws of romantic victory.
Rom: “…Eyes, look your last!
Arms, take your last embrace! And, lips, O you
The doors of breath seal with a righteous kiss
A dateless bargain to engrossing death!”
Obviously, Al Qaida for serious, fascist reasons, and the AP and Reuters for frivolous reasons (hip nihilism; fashionable anti-Americanism) would both like to see the same happen in the fight for the freedom and dignity of the long-benighted Iraqi people.
Bardseye returns today from a second baby-related hiatus (our little Shakespearean thrives; his powers daily grow) to marry a slice of Romeo and Juliet to the captivating conflict in Iraq.
As the gentle reader will recall, for killing Paris (not the city, which hardly needs to be murdered given its current cultural suicide, but rather Juliet’s undesired fiancé) Romeo was banished to Mantua. His servant Balthasar rode hence in Act V with news of events in Verona, news which put quite a crimp in Romeo’s oddly happy mood:
Rom: “If I may trust the flattering truth of sleep,
My dreams presage some joyful news at hand.
My bosom’s lord sits lightly in his throne,
And all this day an unaccustomed spirit
Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts.”
Enter Romeo’s man, Balthasar.
“News from Verona! How now, Balthasar?
Dost thou not bring me letters from the friar?
How doth my lady?.…”
Bal: “Her body sleeps in Capels’ monument,
And her immortal part with angels lives.
I saw her laid low in her kindred’s vault,
And presently took post to tell it you.
O, pardon me for bringing these ill news.”
Obviously, Shakespeare was warning us in this passage about the Associated Press, our modern-day Balthasar, who rides – too soon! – from Baghdad with front page news of mosques destroyed and civilians set fire to in the streets, news that is later, in quieter pages folded well inside, and just like Balthasar’s news of Juliet’s death, discredited.
Blog readers will already be aware that the sole source for the atrocity described above, and nearly the sole source for sixty news stories detailing Shia attacks on Sunni civilians, is a Baghdad police captain whose existence the AP was for some weeks unable to confirm. He has since been confirmed as a real person, but his sixty stories have not fared as well. The destroyed mosques are standing; no confirmation for the bodies burned in the street – an act that even in today’s Baghdad could be expected to stand out. (Whoops - the latest information now is that the AP story confirming the captain's identity was itself discredited; his existence remains still unconfirmed).
First Senator: “This cannot be,
By no assay of reason: ‘tis a pageant,
To keep us in false gaze.”
Othello, Act I, scene iii
The kafuffle over the captain, however it may be resolved, has revealed a fearful reliance of Western news organizations (whose reporters fear to tread outside the protected green zone) on local Iraqi stringers, who tend to be partisan, and whose reports tend to remain unconfirmed. The longstanding anti-American track record of the major wire services, AP and Reuters, required of news consumers another layer of suspicion.
Meanwhile, the war in Iraq remains a complex, fascinating struggle, one where the US has achieved signal successes alongside the more loudly amplified failures. From Al Qaida’s standpoint, the public relations effort is critical; with outright military success unlikely, their strategy must focus on demoralizing the US voter and taxpayer in order to cause the American effort to be called off by the civilians back home. The willingness AP and Reuters to print whatever their Iraqi stringers tell them is therefore extremely useful to Al Qaida.
It’s worth remembering that Balthasar’s false report is what caused Romeo and Juliet to grasp defeat from the jaws of romantic victory.
Rom: “…Eyes, look your last!
Arms, take your last embrace! And, lips, O you
The doors of breath seal with a righteous kiss
A dateless bargain to engrossing death!”
Obviously, Al Qaida for serious, fascist reasons, and the AP and Reuters for frivolous reasons (hip nihilism; fashionable anti-Americanism) would both like to see the same happen in the fight for the freedom and dignity of the long-benighted Iraqi people.
posted by bardseyeview @ 2:47 PM
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