Or rather, throw out Western standards without bothering to contextualize the situation. Hey, it worked for the Bush administration in transplating the American democratic model to Iraq... oh, wait a minute...
The nytimes presents an article about how Maliki's government is pledging to fulfill a demand of the powerful journalism union in Iraq: give the journalists land. In terms of column inches, the issue is balanced, but not in the presentation.
The headline sets the situation up as a conflict: For Iraqi journalists, Free Press v. Free Land.
Not so. The article freely discusses the dangers of working as a journalist, the minimal compensation, and the history of the profession under Hussein. One outspoken opponent overstates his case a bit:
Ziad al-Ajili, the manager of a Baghdad-based advocacy group, Journalistic Freedoms Observatory, said of the land giveaway: “I would not take it even if I have to live in a tent. As soon as you do, it will be the end of Iraq’s independent journalism.”
He acknowledges the difficulties Iraqi journalists face; his organization keeps a tally of arrests, killings and beatings of journalists, as well as government violations of press freedoms. But the best way to address these problems, he said, is through more journalism, not government handouts.
“They’re not thinking about the future,” he said of his colleagues. “If they think about the future as independent journalists, we can do lots of things.”
In the list of things to think about, involving the future for a target of murder in a warzone, I would put survival near the top of my list. Say, food--oh yes, and shelter. As in land.
I'm inclined to side with Ziad....there's no such thing as a free lunch
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