Issue No. 605
Opinion
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26 Sept. - 2 October 2002 Issue No. 605 Opinion |
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Recommend this page | ||
Greater coverage
Official America may have found convenient answers as to why 11 September attacks took place. The administration has portrayed the attack on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon as a random act of terror, an act that has no political motivation worth examining. But the public is not completely satisfied. And research centres have been looking into the question of what lies behind the hatred that fuelled the attacks.
The American public, studies suggest, knows very little about the world, and so do many of those elected to political office. This gap of knowledge makes US policy detached, askew, vulnerable to pressure groups. Whose mistake is it? Is it the public that does not care to know, or the media that does not care to inform? News services which focus on international coverage, such as CNN and NBC, draw more viewers from abroad than within the US. The result is a gap of knowledge, one that can result in unpleasant surprises, one that does not need to happen in a country with such massive technological and economic sway.
There are signs that international coverage in the US media is expanding. But this is not enough. More is needed to make ordinary Americans aware of the issues beyond the borders of their county, state, and country. If the US public becomes more aware of what goes on outside US borders perhaps US policy will become better informed, less disappointing to other nations. And perhaps then America will be less likely to invoke the wrath of those beyond its borders, and avoid the attending host of unpleasant surprises.
This week's Soapbox speaker is a professor of journalism at Cairo University.
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