I just finished reading People Like Us by Joris Luyendijk, a former Dutch news correspondent to the Middle East. While the style of the book is easy to read, the concepts are thought-provoking. Luyendijk reveals the inner workings of the international news machine, and reflects on how the Middle East in particular is often misrepresented and misunderstood in Western media. Note to self: read his other book, Hello Everybody!
Some quotes ...
"I had always thought that the 'news' was a compilation of the most important things in the world. But after six months as a correspondent, reality set in. News is only what is different from the everyday -- the exception to the rule. With an unknown world like the Arab one, this has a distorting effect. When someone is shot on Dam Square in Amsterdam, it's news, but Dutch people know that people aren't normally shot there. They've been there themselves, or they know someone who went there and returned safely. But how much do Dutch people know about daily life in the Middle East? . . . If you are told only about the exceptions, you'll think they are the rule." (37)
"Dictatorship itself is the most important thing to report about in the Arab world . . . Writing 'around' this was like reporting on France or the Netherlands in 1943 without mentioning the occupation."
"Did the hundreds of thousands of anti-war demonstrators in Europe know what Saddam did to his subjects? I was not aware that many of the demonstrators thought anything other than: 'Of course dictators are bad, but war is really horrible, so we're against it under any circumstances --- Peace, man!' I'd say dictatorship is war, too; a regime's war on its own people." (214)
"The borders of the Middle East had been drawn by foreign, largely European, powers at the end of the First World War in order to facilitate their domination of the area." (quoting Henry Kissinger in Diplomacy)
