Wereldjournalisten op bezoek

And here is Australia’s reaction to the the release of Geert Wilders’ film Fitna.

Australia being as multicultural as it is and with a large Muslim community, it comes as no surprise that the Foreign Minister Stephen Smith has expressed outrage and disagreement with the film.

In the below article Mr. Smith has been quoted saying that the film is an “obvious attempt to generate discord between faith communities”. He also added that “in Australia we believe in the right to freedom of expression but we don’t believe in abusing that right to incite racial hatred.”

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23455556-12377,00.html

Having discussed the numerous definitions of the “freedom of speech” and likewise the abuse of it when it is used to insult, where does Fitna fit into all this?

Hi All,

Just to inform you the long-debated Wilders movie has been released tonight. “Fitna” can be found here:

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=ee4_1206625795

I have to admit that, sometimes, I do my best to fit Western media theories into the Latin American puzzle. But I, also, confess that I fail once in a while. Well crafted European concepts seem to vanish against turbulent, cruel, polarized and ultra-politicized Latin American public spheres.
I wonder how discussions about “infotainment” – a genre that mixes information and entertainment – would adapt to the reality of Venezuela and El Salvador, where mainstream media and leftist politics are constantly struggling with each other and dreaming to have complete dominance of public spheres? In what extent, Jary G. Blumler’s theory about the transformation of politics into a world of “slogans, images and racy soundbites” would be valid in countries where some people still attend elections with the only intention of receiving a free lunch? Would Kees Brants‘ remark that politics “also cast terrain of domestic life” still be relevant in media landscapes where populism is a historic disease in politics?
A war approach seems a better way to understand some Latin American countries, instead of using stable and European patterns. The history of European state-controlled media contrasts with the regions turbulent past in which public spheres were seen as cruel battlefields, and media merely as soldiers in a conflict. For example, in Venezuela, president Hugo Chavez challenges the trend of the retreat of governments from media business. Chavez assures the future belongs to Telesur (www.telesurtv.net), a transnational television network in which left-wing Latin American governments are share holders. Within the boundaries of the South American country, Chavez strengthens the importance of state owned and alternative radio and television stations in a clear challenge to the traditional mainstream media.
In El Salvador, the next presidential election will be played, also, on a polarized chessboard. Left and right-wing Salvadorean parties are recruiting media persons to influence the tailoring of the news. While ARENA, the right wing party, pulls the thread of the complaisent mainstream media, Mauricio Funes, a former journalist and current FMLN´s leftist presidential candidate, impulses a new concept of journalism with closer ties to the left wing.
Once in a while, I believe European theoretical tools can be insufficient to portray media realities in Third World countries. Brants´ and Blumler’s debate about if “infotainment” is an unavoidable reality or a dangerous menace for liberal democracy can be seen merely as a peaceful interpretation for, more or less, peaceful public spheres. Not for Latin America which  needs different tools to examine its media anathomy.

“Too Little Ethnic Diversity In The Media”. Just a headline appearing in the screen of my news wire feed. During a normal working day at my newspaper Sp!ts, I would probably just regard such a story as ‘not newsy enough’, or maybe put it on the back up list in case there is a little gap on a page to fill in. But after almost a year of studies within the Erasmus Mundus Master in Journalism  , I cant help but pay attention to the story.

I skip through the text as I read: “…. Monday published essay about media policy and diversity by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science… external research commission checked data gathered in the past ten years… they state that broadcasters have good intentions, but cope with a ‘lack of incentives’ to adopt cultural and ethnical diversity to their programmes in a structural way.”

When asked, a spokesperson of the Dutch public broadcaster states he agrees with the report’s conclusions: “Diversity is one of the public broadcaster’s main goals. We work very hard create improvement.”

Within my relatively new background in ‘journalism and cultural diversity’ all kinds of thoughts cross my mind. I find this interesting and I would like to read the report to be able to judge what to think of this little summary I got from the news wire. But is it to the interest of the readers of our paper? Sp!ts is a free national daily and is distributed mainly in public transport and other public places. The idea is that you spend no more than a few minutes on reading the paper to be informed about that day’s main news, gossip and ‘talks of the day’.

I check FOK, a Dutch news site who did post the story, and read some of the responses: “Already in my early days that political correctness of ‘Sesame Street’ drove me mad with that ‘multi-nonsense’, but now I guess ‘Islame Street’ will be next soon.” And someone else says: “Maybe this is something you can’t force.”

Two responses that trigger my thoughts on the role of media within multicultural societies, but as the deadline calls I have to decide I should leave it out. Although choosing is part of the job in any newsroom, I still doubt for a second. Judging from my Sp!ts ‘news criteria’ mind set, I know this story does not compete with the other articles we have to bring the next day. But although my daily practice has not yet changed, I do realise I am slowly but surely creating other ways to look at the news.

In a foreign city the best refuge is the book. Between its pages not only can one find a calm from the pressures of living in an alien land but also entertainment or knowledge and, if lucky, both.

On the first day in Amsterdam even as one dodged cycles and just about managed not to fall in one of the canals on way to the university one managed to note the location of a second-hand book. A hesitant entry the next day proved propitious — a whole range of books, in English and long coveted. The copious supply of English books was a pleasant surprise. For, at the last halt in another European city, there had been plenty of books, but mostly in Danish.

And Amsterdam had unending supplies of book, practically at every corner and in every market. Since then it has been a series of discovery of books — in proper bookshops, impromptu stalls, flea-markets and even second-hand clothes shops. One only wishes one had the money to buy many, if not all, of them. This and the problem of storing and carting have curbed one from losing control.

Just as one was thinking of looking up the book culture of Amsterdam, came some illumination from Amsterdam Weekly’s March 11-13 issue. A special on books, it reported the Dutch Book Foundation as revealing that in 2007 more than 45 million book copies were sold in the Netherlands. It had more: The historically renowned centre of the printed word, Amsterdam would become the UNESCO World Book Capital in April and then in May host the world’s biggest book market.

It may be easy to sell books in Amsterdam but attracting the buyer to your store may not be easy. This is where window-dressing comes in. As with many other things, the Dutch seem to take this seriously enough to have thematic competitions and award prizes. This week, Bookblad, the trade magazine for publishers, is to have its nationwide window-dressing competition with Old Age as the theme.

In this milieu, curiously anachronistic sounds an international symposium that the Amsterdam Public Library is hosting on “The Book in the Internet Era: Copyright and the Future for Authors, Publishers and Libraries’. However much the computer may have become the arbiter of our lives it cannot hope to match the magic of the book — its reality, its peculiar smell, its feel, the rustling of the pages….

js

Saturday at 13.00, a demonstration will be held at the Dam in Amsterdam, against Wilders.

http://www.nederlandbekentkleur.nl/ 

Although it is the international day against racism, this demonstration will mainly focus on Wilders. The organizers say they want to give voice to the people who are ‘ done’ with Wilders.

Also, a company called Mediamatic initiated a project in which Dutch people dressed up as Wilders say ‘ sorry’  for his movie Fitna.

http://www.vk.tv/video/19814 

A lot of Dutch people are embarrased for Wilders and by shooting these ‘ sorry’  videos and them posting them on youtube under the names: Fitna and Geert Wilders, Mediamatic hopes that when Fitna is finally spread through internet, people searching for this movie also see all Dutch people saying sorry. 

What do youi guys think of this? Will this change people’s perspective on the Netherlands? I thought the ‘ sorry’  video was quite a funny idea, but was wondering whether Osama will be impressed by all these drunken Dutch, dressing up as Wilders, using their funny voices to say sorry……

Shoot!

I was wondering what my very multicultural classmates think of the following tv-fragment:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knRLJp-nqSg&feature=related

It has been chosen TV-moment of the year. You see very famous comedian Hans Teeuwen who defends himself for insulting the three muslim-showhosts in a song.

Shoot!