BAD LAY’S Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney tossed chips to members of the media on his campaign plane in Jacksonville, Fla., Monday. The state’s primary is Tuesday. (Photo: Brian Snyder / Reuters via the Wall Street Journal)
Granted if you’re embedded with the campaign all the time, it might be a problem, but I’m old school enough to be concerned about a conflict of interest here.
(or Dana Priest is a better reporter than you)
by a Journalist with a Stick up Her Ass for a Good Reason
It’s a good morning. You catch all your forms of public transportation on time to work, your coffee is just the right temperature and hasn’t been burnt. You sit down at your computer and after a couple of really important emails and sticky notes that you find on your desk, you load Tumblr.
Oh! How wonderful all this stuff on your Dash is! Time for the morning reblogging, a most sacred time. You scrolls down the first page and find:
So, for your morning reblog you choose the gif (YAY TIMES! Id!), and the interesting and/or funny chart/image. You have acheived mastery of the tumblr reblog, having been both delighted and informed and then passing those qualities off to your Tumblr followers, some of whom have become your good friends, others, while you don’t know them, most certaintly deserve the best your Tumblr can give them today.
WAIT A MINUTE.
The informative in a funny way post? The one with about 40000 notes? Isn’t that crazy that you didn’t know that before? And especially because it lends further credence to the view of the world that you have, combined with fun facts?
So, amused smarty pants - where did that information come from?
No, seriously, I’m asking.
Can you find the original poster? When you do, is it clear that they’ve just reblogged it but removed the chain of reblogs before them? Does the chart/graph/infographic have any information on it that could lead you to find it independently of the tumblr post (i.e. a “soandso.com” watermark). Have you googled it, for karma’s sake?
Learn from a journalist. While of course the Tumblrs you follow don’t act in bad faith, somewhere along the line, someone might have. Or someone might have not asked themselves these same questions.
Maybe its legit. If so, even better. Reblog the shit out of that. But do you know? Really?
I write this because I have done this myself. I am just as guilty. As much as love love love Tumblr, it is so easy to lose sourcing here, so do yourself a favor, and the next time you feel really excited about a reblog and it has specific information, take a couple seconds to figure it out.
*steps off soapbox*
Even though I lived there.
I can read Arabic with a dictionary nearby
I studied the Middle East as a concentration in Intl. Affairs. You want to see my transcript?
For the past couple of days, a lot of friends have been coming to me for answers/explanations/to know if this is “good” or “bad”. I’ve seen a lot of instapundits on Twitter and Facebook and yes, here on Tumblr. Twitter, of course, biases you towards the protestors (not neccessarily a bad bias, but increasingly I realize relying on a limited window of self-selected followers will not give you a full picture of any policy change or event).
And when I try to honestly answer my friend’s questions, I realize how much I don’t know, and how everyone who is thinking about this crisis in good faith is also hustling for some information. My impressions of the country are over four years old, and tainted with the fact that I was very very scared until I was just about to leave. I fear crowds because of Cairo - no matter the intention of the crowd. That is another story.
I read the philosophical starting point of the Muslim Brotherhood, (and probably got myself on a watch list in 2004 because of it) and it was scary. Yet, that document no longer directly represents their aims, but then I think, how do I know what I know about them, about Mubarak, about Egyptians in general?
Two weeks ago, I would have told you that while they are happy to have the Pyramids/etc in their country, today’s Egyptians have no real connection with the Pharonic artifacts (today’s egyptians are mostly descended from Turks and people from Middle Asia). I was wrong, obviously. Some Egyptians formed a human chain around the museum to try and protect it.
What else was I wrong about? What assumptions are people using?
And then there is the problem of the sweeping generalization. If 1 million people attended a rally in Washington, but you didn’t agree with it, would you be happy with people on twitter saying “Americans want this.”
Granted a rally, or any political action is based on a sampling of a larger section of people who hold that belief, but still - it takes a lot of hard thinking to undo snap judgements that people a half a world away make.
And then, the actions of the U.S. government. I have never thought that that $2 billion (some of that is military, some of that is direct aid) we give them a year goes anywhere but down the black hole of government corruption. Yet, I think it is short-sighted to say that U.S. acting like it has interests (self-interest, yes) in Egypt is morally wrong. The “obviously” right, honorable thing to do is to not support Mubarak. We shouldn’t hold up dictators, but then who should we hold up? Anyone who has legitimate popular support in the Middle East these days - I can bet you probably don’t like them. They don’t subscribe to the same ideals or the same worldview. Which is fine, but I think people really have to wrap their heads around alternatives and then say, I’m okay with this as a citizen of the world. That people should have the right to choose their leaders, even if I hate what their leaders stand for. When, in the actually tiny tiny world that we live in, who rules another county does have an affect on you. I don’t like everything that State Dept. does, but I’m glad they’re there.
In 2006, a young Egyptian man told me, with complete seriousness that he believed George Bush would invade Egypt in the near future. I tried to convince him otherwise, but he would hear nothing of it. What didn’t he know that I did? Was my understanding of U.S public opinion on wars we were already running? Knowing the U.S. wouldn’t invade a county without oil? The existing political status quo that was Egypt/U.S. relations?
What don’t you know?
I support the protesters - this has been coming for too long in a country that has been literally starved by its own government. The one thing I was right about - that I’ve been saying since 2006? “With Egypt, it’s only a matter of time before something happens.” But I don’t think the people cheering them on understand the full implications of what’s going to happen once we stop paying attention (and we will. What’s happening in Tunisia right now?)
Insh’allah Misr you will come through this better than before.
EDIT: Just saw that CNN used a Zawhiri video during a “What’s Next for Egypt?” segement. One of the things I DO know is that Muslim Brotherhood does not equal Al Qaeda. MB are a sort of national “party” (if parties other than NDP were allowed) and are not associated with actual terror groups based in Egypt. That being said, I wouldn’t be thrilled to live in a MB gov, I think.
“Ms. Eltahawy told CNN: “The Mubarak regime has never cared about the museum. If the Mubarak regime cared about the museum it would take care of the priceless items there. They don’t care about it. They care about the pyramids because they took the money from toursm and put it into their own pockets.”
Actual, I think I agree with her, with the minor and hopefully levity bringing caveat of ZAHIIII, the most ridiculous minister of antiquities ever.
MY KINGDOM FOR ACCURACY, and that lady to stop starting every sentence with, “People like me”
Want to know what’s happening in Tunisia? Let me explain:
What is Tunisia? Tunisia is a mostly Arab, mostly Muslim country in North Africa. It is on the south side of the Mediterranean sea, east of Algeria and west of Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya. Its capital is Tunis, and it has been ruled by dictators since it won independence from France in 1956. The current ruler, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali (Ben Ali), has ruled since 1987. He is the kind of ruler who gets re-elected with 90 percent of the “vote.”
What’s happening? Violent riots and protests have spread across the country over the past four weeks. Now Ben Ali’s totalitarian government seems to be collapsing. (Elliott Abrams, a former Bush administration official who unfortunately is rarely right about anything, thinks that if democracy can take hold in Tunisia, it could spread elsewhere in the Arab world, too.)
Why are Tunisians unhappy? Well, they don’t have much freedom. But there also just aren’t enough jobs. Official unemployment is 13 percent, but it’s probably actually much higher. The combination of a repressive regime and a faltering economy is often bad news for the regime. Plus, the regime has diverted a lot of the country’s wealth to Ben Ali’s family and friends, so people are really upset about official corruption.
How did it all start? On December 19, authorities in the small, central city of Sidi Bouzid seized the produce cart that 26-year-old Mohamed Bouazizi was using to make a living. So Bouazizi set himself on fire. Young people in the small, central city of Sidi Bouzid rioted, and police moved to seal the city. In early January, Bouazizi died, becoming an early martyr for the cause. Brian Whitaker, the Middle East editor of the Guardian and a Tunisia expert, has a good article explaining how Bouazizi and Sidi Bouzid got the ball rolling on revolution.
What’s the WikiLeaks connection? Foreign Policy’s Christopher Alexander explains:
Shortly before the December protests began, WikiLeaks released internal US State Department communications in which the American ambassador described Ben Ali as aging, out of touch, and surrounded by corruption. Given Ben Ali’s reputation as a stalwart US ally, it mattered greatly to many Tunisians—particularly to politically engaged Tunisians who are plugged into social media—that American officials are saying the same things about Ben Ali that they themselves say about him. These revelations contributed to an environment that was ripe for a wave of protest that gathered broad support.
Hackers affiliated with Anonymous, a vaguely defined, loosely organized group that has defended WikiLeaks, hit Tunisian websites in early January.
What’s the latest news? A visibly shaken Ben Ali appeared on national television Thursday night, promising reforms and indicating that he would step down in 2014. But protests only grew larger on Friday. The very latest—i.e., what happened Friday afternoon—is that Ben Ali has fired his cabinet and promised legislative (but not presidential) elections in six months. Then he declared a state of emergency.
He’s trying to buy time. But the regime is clearly reeling, and there are unconfirmed reports of gunfire in the capital. Police are definitely shooting at protesters, according to an American quoted in this New York Times report.Whatever is going to happen could happen soon. The very very latest is that Ben Ali has fled the country, according to Al Jazeera, and the Army has taken power.How do I follow what’s happening in real-time? Your best immediate resource is the Twitter feed of Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi, a columnist for The National, the United Arab Emirates’ leading English-language newspaper. The hashtag to follow (or “feed,” as the Times mistakenly dubbed it) is #sidibouzid, after the city where the first riots took place. #tunisie is another good option. Al-Bab, a blog written by Brian Whitaker, the Guardian Middle East editor mentioned above, is indispensable. Whitaker’s latest posts—”Tunisia: Double or Quits,” and “Tunisia: The Last Days of Ben Ali” are must-reads. If you’re looking for a more US-centric view, you should also check out “Tunisia on the Brink of Revolution?” and “When Pro-Western Regimes Fall: What Should the US Do?” over at Democracy Arsenal.
This is a good primer and I’m glad you’ve shared it, especially seeing it was written by a friend. I see you’ve linked it up the top but honestly, then why copy and paste the whole thing? I see you’ve done this with The Economist and other mags on your blog. Thanks for sharing, but credit where credit is due is usually curating and excerpting the most interesting parts then linking to the original source. It may mean nothing to you, but for me and for him, that stuff is important.
(via think4yourself)
and yes I am guilty of this a bit too - please check it out - a lie spreads quicker than the truth can get its shoes on
/schoolmarmish journalist PSA
