Tag: Media

Reverse Causality

Mike Coté1 Comment

When it comes to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, media warps cause and effect through misrepresentation and decontextualization.

Anti-Israel bias is rife in the media and international organizations like the United Nations; this has been the case since the founding of the Jewish State in 1948. This truth was humorously depicted by the Israeli statesman Abba Eban, who said “If Algeria introduced a resolution declaring that the earth was flat and that Israel had flattened it, it would pass by a vote of 164 to 13 with 26 abstentions.” This prejudice is especially prevalent with regards to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, where media and anti-Israel actors paint Israel as the aggressor when it is far more often the respondent. The false presentation of the conflict is not only in the realm of history, but current events as well. Through decontextualization, differential treatment, and outright prejudice, a false picture of this thorny issue is painted. This has been clearly displayed in the past week, as violence – blamed on Israel, but stoked by Palestinians – has flared during the Ramadan and Passover holidays.

To put these recent tensions into their proper context – which the media is loath to do – Israel has been dealing with a wave of terror attacks over the past year, including stabbings, car attacks, and rocket assaults from Hamas in Gaza. This has boiled over in the past few days, sparked by an incident that has been blatantly mischaracterized by most coverage. On Wednesday April 5, Israeli police entered the Temple Mount compound – the holiest site in Judaism and the third-holiest in Islam – to disperse an illicit gathering and remove fireworks and other stockpiled non-traditional weaponry from the al Aqsa Mosque. This was described by almost all media coverage as a violent Israeli “raid” that was unprovoked and brutally targeted peaceful worshippers. This could not be further from the truth, and ignores critical context that puts the Israeli reaction into perspective.

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Against the State of the Union

Mike Coté1 Comment

A brief polemic against the most monarchical, overblown, tedious piece of political entertainment in the American system.

Tonight is President Biden’s second State of the Union address (his first address to a joint session of Congress in 2021 was technically not a SotU because he had just been inaugurated). Most likely it will be far too long, constantly interrupted by Stalin-esque continued applause, and full of total nonsense. Biden will call out people in the audience that are brought in specifically for the purpose of being used as political pawns, he will make promises that everyone will forget about 5 minutes later, and he will occasionally go off-script to make him feel down-to-earth. The speech will be phony, the reception will be obsequious, and the TV coverage will be wall-to-wall.

How do I know this? Because every State of the Union address is exactly the same song-and-dance. Can you tell that I don’t like this “tradition”?

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To Love “a Good Hate”

Mike Coté2 Comments

The democratization of outrage via social media has overturned the historical relationship between media and audience, allowing us to indulge in our worst instincts.

Rage is an emotion buried deep within the human character; it is omnipresent, contributing to wars, murders, arguments, jealousies, and assaults since time immemorial. Anger can drive humans to incredible feats of courage, honor, and justice just as easily as it can power unparalleled atrocities and destruction – sometimes in pursuit of the very same hatred. Wrath, a feeling which is quite uncomfortable for most people, can – paradoxically – be addictive.

The confluence of interest and outrage has been exploited by powerful actors for centuries. Christians, slaves, prisoners, and other dissidents were publicly executed to the cheers of baying Roman crowds; itinerant preachers pressed Crusades on an ever-willing public with tales of woe betide Christians in the Holy Land; increasingly absurd antisemitic lies were lapped up by peasants across Europe and used to justify expulsions and pogroms; the list goes on and on. Since the advent of print media, the addictiveness of outrage has been of prime benefit to the press. Newspapers helped drive the American and French Revolutions, publishing polemics against government policy and promoting a robust disputation of ideas about politics. Radical abolitionist papers pushed Americans to deal with the reality of slavery and the moral and economic arguments against it, often through the stoking of righteous indignation.

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The Rational Policy Podcast Episode 9 – Foreign Telegram, January 2023

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Happy New Year! January 2023 has been replete with interesting stories in the world of international affairs.  We’ve seen an absurd overreaction to the new Israeli government, political rioting from left and right in Peru and Brazil, and utter chaos in Mexico driven by cartel violence. In this Foreign Telegram, we discuss all  three – recapping recent events, discussing the history behind the headlines, analyzing their impact, and explaining why they matter. Strap in for a whirlwind tour around the world of foreign policy in January 2023!

https://anchor.fm/rationalpolicy/episodes/Episode-9—Foreign-Telegram–January-2023-e1tv6l2

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No, Giorgia Meloni Is Not a Fascist

Mike Coté1 Comment

This past weekend, Italy held snap parliamentary elections to replace its unpopular government. Although results are still being finalized, it looks as though the big winner of the day was the right-wing coalition led by Giorgia Meloni and her Brothers of Italy party. Brothers of Italy received the greatest share of the vote, twenty-six percent, and together with Matteo Salvini’s League and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, they seem poised to build a government with popular backing.

If you’ve heard anything about the results of this democratic process from the mainstream media, however, it has likely been descriptions of Brothers of Italy and particularly Meloni herself as “hard right,” “far-right,” or even “fascist.” She has been labeled “a danger to Italy and the rest of Europe” by The Guardian, and the New York Times called her “the first far-right nationalist to govern Italy since Mussolini.” Reading those pieces, you might expect Meloni’s views to echo Il Duce’s famous fascist dictum: “Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State.” In reality, this media framing relies purely on conjecture, guilt by association, bad history, and bias.

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