I am supposed to know all about what I do, because while I don't know about a lot of things, I do know this work of mine very well, both in theory and in practice, in English and in Arabic, not to mention my experiences throughout three capitals and one city across three continents. Nevertheless, I am starting to have doubts about all of this, because I cannot understand the demise of western press, especially the press in America. I cannot understand its failure to stand up to the lies of George W. Bush's administration as it planned its unjustified invasion of Iraq, and then its failure to learn the lessons from the war to prevent being pulled by the tide again. Today, the dominant news on both sides of the Atlantic is the torture of detainees, and the ensuing questions on who drafted the legal justifications behind it, who requested it, and who carried it out, and whether those who violated the relevant U.S laws banning torture will be prosecuted. No doubt, these all are important issues. However, I do not understand how the torture of a couple hundred detainees from Abu Ghraib to Guantanamo, through the secret prisons overseas sanctioned by the CIA, was a graver issue than the falsification of causes of a war that has killed a million Iraqis, and tens of thousands in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This is all while it boosted terrorism around the world when it was originally meant to fight it. What the press in America needs is a triumph that allows it to regain its readership, and perhaps advertisements, at a time when technology is gaining the higher ground and threatening to put an end to the printed press. In this regard, I want to talk specifically about the New York Times (NYT). I am not criticizing here, but rather complaining, because I consider the NYT the most important newspaper in the world, as it claims itself to be. The paper did not do a job one would expect it to do on the eve of the war. Instead, it granted its front pages to people like Judith Miller. It did not compensate such shortcomings later on, and did not indict any members of the war gang, nor did it call for those responsible for the death and destruction in the Middle East to be brought to justice as they deserve. It is not fair that I should criticize a newspaper that has just won five Pulitzer prizes, and boasts of a set of the most important press awards in the world, but then I am not criticizing. I am urging for those accused to be prosecuted, then I allege that an issue as serious as the Vietnam papers, or even Watergate, may help newspapers cut their losses in both readership and advertisements. The NYT owns 18 other newspapers including the Boston Globe, which could be closed down by the mother company because of its increasing losses. The company has recently announced that it lost in the first three months of this year around $ 74.5 million, compared to 335 thousand dollars in the same period of last year. It had received financial support at the sum of 250 million dollars from Lebanese-Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, then had to mortgage its historic building, before starting to sell off some of the companies it owns. The problem is not with one newspaper. The Washington Post is also losing, and is surviving thanks to revenues coming from other companies it owns. The same applies for Chicago's Sun Times and the Tribune which are now in chapter 11, a step preceding bankruptcy, which is aimed at protecting the owners from the attacks of creditors. Also, the Los Angeles Times and the San Francisco Chronicle are for all practical purposes bankrupt. But I am not claiming that the difficulties facing the American printed press were caused by the Iraq War. Rather, it is technology that is threatening the newspapers in all western countries. In France, newspapers have received government subsidy. While this is acceptable in a country where socialism is above-board, this is absolute blasphemy in the heartland of global capitalism, i.e. America. In Great Britain, newspapers suffered in 2008 from losses valued at about 7 percent of their sales, and 18.8 percent from their ad revenues. This year is expected to be much worse in this regard. In the meantime, I believe that this press, from which we have learned much and still do, is busying itself along with the readers, with the issue of the torture of detainees to the extent that this news shadowed the assessment of Barack Obama's first 100 days in the White House, as is the tradition with every new president. In the last two years, I noticed that many blogs have beaten the traditional press to several of the most important scoops. Today, I notice that with this massive focus on torture, as if it is the most important issue in the Iraq War, blogs are still competing and winning sometimes. My best references on this subject last week was in the Huffington Post, where Arianna Huffington wrote objectively, and hosted an array of writers. Her website was even more liberal than the NYT, which does give the chance for other opinions to be expressed on its pages, although the American right-wing and Likudnik newspapers never host any liberals. I had noticed earlier that Andrew Rosenthal, the Op-Ed chief editor in the newspaper, seemed close to the neo-conservatives. I thought that his experience with William Kristol, who tarnished the Op-Ed page with his poisonous views then disappeared, would have been a sufficient lesson. But I was surprised last week when another right-wing writer was hosted by Rosenthal. The writer was Ross Douthat, who chose for his article the title "Cheney for president". Still, he seems as if he were a rightist-lite. I will continue talking about this tomorrow. Al-Hayat 10-05-2009
