Balanced Reporting

Today's "Daily Mirror" in London has a full page statement on the cover, "Sorry.. We Were Hoaxed". The Editor has also resigned. The reason? Photos of British soldiers abusing Iraqis have now been shown to be fakes. Rifles and trucks shown in the photos were never deployed to Iraq. One British serviceman has been detailed in the investigation. This is not to say there have not been abuses by the Americans in Iraq. However it is interesting to note the reaction to the Arab language press to the British hoax - silence. Go to aljazeera.net or arabnews.com. Silence. Now why would that be? Quite simply, newspapers and other forms of media exist to make money, and they make money by telling people what they want to hear. In the Arab world, they want to hear about the abuse of Iraqis, not that their rage against the British was misplaced. However I must credit ArabNews from Saudi Arabia. They have been doing a number of articles about the tragedy of spouse abuse in Saudi Arabia, since a high profile media personality had her face shattered by her husband. Today's article points out how difficult it is for women to get help in a society where a woman cannot go anywhere without a male guardian.