Last summer, New York Times Columnist Stephen J. Dubner wrote a column in which he trashed claims that the Israeli military was harvesting organs from palestinians without the permission of their relatives.

Dubner, with no facts but probably an instant bias against all claims critical of Israel or, more likely, that drive sympathy for the oppressed Palestinians, write that the claim was “probably false.”

Wow. A whole column on why something so significant would be false. you wouldn’t expect the New York Times or its flashy columnist, Thomas Friedman to explore the veracity of such an outrageous claim against Israel, athough Dubner made sure to include the knee-jerk response that Israel always makes when it is criticized, quoting:

“The Israeli government has struck back, claiming that Boström’s article is false, outrageous, and, in the words of Benjamin Netanyahu, a “blood libel,” the sort of malicious rumor that has led to the persecution of Jews for centuries.”

Click here for the link to the column.

Then, Dubner went on to explain why harvesting human organs would be unlikely. It requires so much technical know-how.

That was in August 2009. A few weeks back, Jan. 19, 2010, Dubner offered a mild correction in typical pro-Israel bias seen often at the New York Times and in larger mainstream news media that just don’t want to be bothered by the facts when defending Israel or bashing Arabs. Dubner wrote:

“And in a more distant post, I discussed why an accusal of “the Israeli Army of harvesting organs from Palestinians wounded or killed by soldiers” was “probably false.” In a separate but related story, it has since been reported that “Israel has admitted that in the 1990s, its forensic pathologists harvested organs from dead bodies, including Palestinians, without permission of their families.” ”

Click here for a link to the story.

Tragically, this kind of shoot-from-the-hip defense of a foreign government is not unusual. Had this story involved any other nation, it would have dominated the news headlines for weeks. It is scandalous.

The response of the Israeli  government — and I want to stress here that this is NOT about criticizing Israel or Israelis, but criticizing a government — is outrageous. They finally admit a decade later that they did indeed harvest organs from Palestinians. They lied about it when it happened, denied it and, as you read, slandered those who made the claims.

What does that say about today? That because the mainstream news media does not do its job, we must wait 10 more years to discover the truth?

What about the accusations in the report by renown war crimes Jurist Richard Goldstone, a report that detailed numerous atrocities committed by Israeli soldiers, including in one case rounding up civilians in a school building and then shooting them dead.

Read the Goldstone Report, if you have any foundation of professional journalism. The facts are outrageous and offensive. Those who are using the Goldstone Report to slander Israel and Israelis are clearly overstepping their bounds. But the news media refusal to hold the Israeli government accountable amounts to a violation of their professional responsibilities. Allowing people like lawyer Alan Dershowitz slander those calling for an investigation by publishing his columns in their newspapers is a violation of professional journalism, a violation especially when his accusations are published without adequate defense of the Goldstone Report.

The Goldstone Report reminds me of the Mai Lai massacre in Vietnam by Lt. William Calley. Then, the news media held the US Military and the government accountable. yes, it was an outrage. But by airing the crimes and demanding justice, journalists reflected the highest levels of ethics and morality.

Today, that moral high ground is AWOL in mainstream American journalism.

I would like to see it return not just for the of the victims but for the sake of Israel. By investigating and prosecuting the crimes, the United States did this country a great service strengthening our Democratic principles by investigating and standing up for justice. Israel can and should do the same thing.

– Ray Hanania

(Ray Hanania is a  columnist for Israel’s  Jerusalem Post Newspaper, writing every Wednesday, and also a columnist for PalestineNote.com, the leading news and opinion site for Palestinians.)

The US, Google and free-speechers in the West have ramped up criticism of China’s policies which censor content on the Internet and the world’s top search engine accusing the Chinese government of violating free speech. It’s a huge story in the West and the Chinese government controlled newspapers have started a campaign responding with warnings that American-Chinese relations will suffer.

The Chinese routinely block certain web sites, preventing their citizens from accessing content the government dislikes or that is critical of the government. And, they’ve blocked Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and other social networks too, when users on those Internet web portals have launched campaigns to raise public awareness of Chinese issues.

It’s not like media coverage of the repression in China can get any worse for the Chinese government. The Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 lasted seven weeks beginning when a pro-Democracy anti-corruption activist, Hu Yaobang, was killed on April 15 and students gathered to protect his death to June 4 when the world watch as one lone protestor stood defiantly in front of a tank. The media was all over it and there was no Internet of any substance at the time.

The Chinese think media coverage will get worse with the Internet the next time they put down 100,000 citizens who disagree with the government’s policies. And their right. But worse, they know the coverage in 1989 focused on a foreign audience while today’s Internet is something they fear their own citizens will use to learn the truth.

The Chinese are doing censorship and repression of free speech the wrong way. They should try it the way it is done right here in the United States, which claims it is the world champion of free speech, a title that tells you everything about the power of public relations, media manipulation and the art of lying, or spin.

The US doesn’t beat people up — most of the time — who disagree with American policies. Instead, there is a network of likeminded people who know they will not face much punishment who instead engage in second tier censorship acts like, firing people from jobs without blaming it on discrimination, intimidating people, spying on people, and it extends not only in government but also in the private sector. The system has many agencies, public and private, that address racism, except when the racism is of a certain kind. The news media is engaged in a low-key but highly effective practice — remember not stated policy — of denying certain people of certain ethnic and political views jobs.

You see, if you claim to champion the fight against bigotry and racism, you can then be a bigot and racist without consequence. You simply fight racism and bigotry everywhere except in certain specific ciscumstances. The victims get the same point as if they were rounded up by the government and jailed. But the American laid-back strategy of censorship, discrimination, exclusion from the media is far more effective because the victims have little visual proof of being victimized.

They are just excluded from news media jobs because they challenge certain accepted political propaganda beliefs in America, or criticize certain popular countries. They are fired from jobs or denied hiring in low-profile campaigns that the companies don’t brag about. Even when they turn to the Internet, their accounts at Facebook are mysteriously frozen or closed. Web sites are shuttered. The mainstream media is in decline, but they still have much power and they do a great job of excluding many voices from their op-ed pages or, more frequently, limiting those voices to negligible numbers far outweighed by voices the media and public prefer. There is dissent, but only for accepted topics and issues.

The Chinese are going about censorship the wrong way. They should use the American model built on favoring those you love and drowning out those you hate through exclusion and systematic discrimination, while controlling the government bodies that proclaim they fight exclusion and discrimination. See, you have to say you oppose censorship and accept some criticism, and then you can go ahead and censor targeted audiences. It’s very similar to that pinpoint accuracy in bombing we saw during the first War against Iraq, where millions of children died as a result of the Western embargo. What was it called? Oh yea, the brilliant PR spin called “smart bombing.” If you kill someone in an intelligent way, it’s okay to most people in America and the West.

The Chinese should get their act together. Just as the Internet has changed how the world communicates, Western Democracy has changed how repressive governments discriminate and silence those they disagree with. The answer isn’t an all out public war with Google or the US Government — not sure who is more powerful these days. The answer is to embrace free speech, and then control it. With “smart censorship” and “smart discrimination” and “smart repression.” 

– Ray Hanania
www.RadioChicagoland.com

Jared Malsin is an American journalist who happens to be Jewish working as the editor of Maan News Agency in Bethlehem, Palestine. Maan News Agency reports in English and Hebrew covering the Middle East and Israeli-Palestinian relations.

Last week, Malsin was returning from a European trip to Bethlehem through Ben Gurion Airport in tel Aviv when he was arrested by Israeli security and accused with “criticizing Israel.”

Malsin spent 8 days in an airport detention center repeatedly interrogated by Israeli security. He was allowed to speak with a lawyer, though only infrequently, and he was denied all contact with his family, including his mother who made several attempts to determine his status and condition while he was in custody.

Without notice to his attorney, Malsin was deported. The facts are confusing but it appears that Malsin was intimidated into signing a document stating that he wished to leave and no continue his trip to Bethlehem where he worked.

Malsin was deported to New York on Thursday morning.

Both the Israeli and the Palestinian media covered this event extensively. Yest ironically, the media in the nation that is the “leader of the free world” practically ignored the controversy. There were some stories int he media but the mainstream American media left their teeth on this one in the glass on the sink. And when the media wants to put on their teeth, they often do prompting American officials to jump on the media bandwagon’s of outrage. But outrage in the mainstream American media is turned on and off based not on principles, morality nor ethics, but rather on the basis, apparently of politics.

Why do I say this?

Well, last year we saw how the media and American officials respond when the American journalists are not trying to return to jobs in the Occupied West Bank.

Last year, freelance American journalist Roxana Saberi was arrested by Iranian officials and charged with espionage.

There wasn’t one politician, candidate or elected official in the US who didn’t come to her defense and demand her release.

Months later in March, two Asian-American journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, were arrested and charged with espionage by the North Korean government.

The response from the US was powerful and loud. Everyone, including President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, issued statements denouncing the arrests and demanding the release of the journalists.

In both cases, the mainstream American news media stood up to defend their colleagues and their profession.

So why did they fail in this instance involving Malsin?

Well, for one, the Malsin was working in the contentious battle ground called the “Arab-Israeli Conflict.”

For another, when it comes to the Middle East and Israel, the mainstream media is biased and only does a half-assed job of covering the issues there.

Malsin’s arrest is not, as some have argued in the Arab media, an act of Israeli aggression. But it is an act of government oppression that should have been stopped.

Had this happened in Iran or North Korea, both the Republican and Democratic leadership would have suspended the Massachusetts primary to join hands and in a chorus of unity scream for his release.

But it happened in the Occupied West Bank in a little town that most Americans have forgotten, Bethlehem, and only remember in images hanging on their walls at Christmas time.

The mainstream American media failed int his instance. But while the media loves to point out everyone else’s failure, they rarely own up to their own.

– Ray Hanania
My piece on this controversy and how Israel’s and Palestine’s media is far more open and free than the mainstream American media is published in the Jerusalem post. Click here to read it, if you dare experience true free speech.

Jared Malsin, an English editor at the Maan News Agency in Bethlehem, was arrested and jailed by Israeli border police this week for the high crime of “criticizing Israel.” The journalist is sitting in a jail cell awaiting a kangaroo court hearing before an Israeli judge. And there is nothing Arab Journalists can do about it, mainly because they spend more time fighting among themselves than they do networking and creating one, single, strong voice.

Maan, which is constantly under siege from israeli authorities and operating under Israel’s brutal repression of palestinian voices in the occupied West Bank town of Bethlehem, is fighting to spread the word and get support.

But the challenge they face is not of their own doing. The problem has to do with the fact that most journalism associations, especially those organized by Arabs, do not work together. Maybe it’s rivalry. Maybe it’s politics. Maybe it’s about jealousy. Maybe it’s just that the presidents-for-life at the various groups just don’t like each other.

And who suffers? Journalists like Jared Malsin.

In the United States, Arabs have 10 journalism associations. None of them will work together. Almost all of them insist on being “the” organization, when in fact none of them are really anything of significance.

Working together or networking doesn’t mean an organization has to lose its identity nor lose it’s influence. It CAN mean just linking together the way we link pages on the Internet. But that means showcasing another organization and American Arab organizations — not just the Arab journalism groups — don’t like to do that.

Maybe it is a cultural thing?

Because the same thing happens in the Middle East.

Arab World Journalists are arrogant and look down on American Arab journalists, even though journalism in the United States, despite the political bias towards Israel, is more professional and more powerful than anything written in the Middle East. In fact, much of the arrogance has to do with a cultural flaw in the world of Arab journalists. If you don’t speak and write in Arabic, you are NOT an Arab! That’s the corrupted attitude of how Arab World journalism operates.

The truth is that the Arab World media that writes only in Arabic is doing the Arab people, and especially the Palestinian people, a huge disservice. In fact, it might be a moral crime. The Western audience doesn’t read, hear or understand anything published in the Arab World media in Arabic and therefore the Arab World media in Arabic is not influential and marginalized.

But they are legends in their own minds, of course.

How do we change that?

1 – All Arab journalism organizations in the Middle East and in the West such as the United States, should network together. Put aside their differences — Journalism is NOT about politics or activism, but about professional journalism principles of objectivity.

2 – The Arab World media should expand their operations to include mirror English web sites and even sections in their all-Arabic pages with English translations.

3 – Arab American and Western Arab groups should insure they also provide both English and Arabic sections.

Setting aside politics is going to be tough because Arab World journalism did not arise out of the need for free speech, but rather out of the long term activism to fight political oppression in places like Israel and also in other Arab countries like Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States.

In the meantime, everyday an Arab journalist like Jared Maslin is detained, harassed and intimidated by Israel or another government agency including in the Arab World.

And until Arab Journalists decide to set aside their political rivalries and focus first and foremost on professional journalism reporting in both Arabic and English, Jared Malsin won’t be the last.

Click to Read the National Arab American Journalism Association release on Malsin.

Click to read the recent update by Maan (Ma’an) News Agency’s update on Malsin.

– Ray Hanania
www.NAAJA-US.com

NAAJA social networking web site

Click to Read the National Arab American Journalism Association release on Malsin.

Click to read the recent update by Maan (Ma’an) News Agency update on Malsin.

http://www.naaja-us.com

http://naaja-us.ning.com

The National Arab American Journalists Association, which is partnered with the Society of Professional Journalists and the Asian American Journalists Association, tonight issued a protest to the Government of Israel demanding the release of journalist Jared Malsin.

Malsin was detained and interrogated for more than 8 hours and continues to be in custody on charges of criticizing Israel in articles and columns published by the Ma’an News Agency based in Bethlehem, Palestine.

“Journalism freedoms are essential to Democracy and building of peace. Any action to censor or restrict or threaten or intimidate journalists for the sole ‘crime’ of expressing an opinion or covering stories frowned on by the occupation government is a violation not only of international law but a violation of Israel’s claim to be Democratic and fair,” said Ray Hanania, NAAJA coordinator based in Chicago.

“NAAJA is not only calling on Israel to immediately release Jared Malsin, but also urging Israeli journalists who claim to be objective and concerned about free speech, Democracy and the accuracy in reporting to also publicly protest the arrest.”

Hanania, a Chicago morning radio host and syndicated opinion columnist whose commentary appears in publications such as the Arab News, the Jerusalem Post and in many newspapers across the United States, said that NAAJA has issued formal letters to Israel’s embassy in Washington D.C., to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and to Israel’s Ministry of Information in Jerusalem.

“When the government of Israel detains journalists on trumped up charges and on censorship, then Israel is basically admitting that they do abuse citizen rights, they do violate international law and they do not respect the fundamental basics that will one day usher in an era of peace,” Hanania said.

NAAJA calls on journalists around the world to speak out against this detention and demand Malsin’s immediate release.

NAAJA has more than 250 members in the United States. The web page is www.NAAJA-US.com.
end

It’s so easy for the mainstream American media to cover the conflict between Israel and Hamas from the Israeli perspective. This isn’t about politics. It is about the lack of professional journalism and a disrespect, I might add, that the media profession has for the American public. What right do Americans have to know both sides of a major conflict that directly impacts their lives?

I’m not alone in believing, based on the facts, that the mainstream media is detailed when it comes to covering Israel’s side of the conflict, but lacking when it comes to covering the Palestinian side of the conflict.

Greg Mitchell, editor at Editor & Publisher Magazine, the one publication that fairly covers the journalism profession, expressed just these views in his piece that appeared this morning at the HuffingtonPost.com. Click HERE for the link to the column.

Mitchell argues what most American journalists are afraid to say, that a professional discussion of the fundamental issues in the conflict is lacking, and that the media, for many reasons, is pulling its punches in covering the topic, fearful or extremely cautious, maybe, when the topic is Israel.

Why?

Oh, I don’t know. Part of the problem is it is easy to defend Israel against anything, justified or not. Part of the problem is that the mainstream news media has done a consistently poor and unprofessional job of fairly and comprehensively covering the Middle east conflict that Americans are simply uneducated. The American public is not used to a balanced discussion, so their one-sided views reflect the media bias and media failure. And that is a vicious cycle. The public doesn’t demand it and they don’t put pressure on the mainstream media to correct its professional deficit.

The issue of the shoe-throwing is a great example of media bias and failure to explore the issue properly. They just don’t understand. Even the SPJ, which is far more adventurous when it comes to pushing the line towards professionalism, doesn’t understand and censored this blog.

But when you have crumbs, it’s hard to complain as an Arab American journalist.

In the end, though, some in the media may think that by presenting only one side or not reporting on the Palestinian issues fully may help Israel, or some other political agenda. But in the long run, the failure to bring out all the facts not only undermines Israel’s future, it also strengthens and empowers the extremists on both the Arab and the Israeli side.

Tyrants govern not through education and free speech but through repression and oppression. If they can keep their people uneducated and focus them on hateful targets — demonizing the enemy all the time — the oppressed people will simply turn their frustrations not on their repressive governments, but on the demonized. It’s so much easier.

Hamas is growing in strength, not because it is the right choice but because the Palestinians and the Arabs have no other choice. They feel pushed out of the debate and as long as the debate does not fully include their perspectives, they will turn towards the extremists. Not willingly, but out of total frustration. The fuse of their reason gets blown and even the most reasoned become desperate when they can’t vent fairly and openly.

Shame on the mainstream American news media. But that’s not a discussion that will be at the tip of the media poynter, or gleaming on a pearl, or even on the op-ed pages of most American newspapers. It’s just not there.

This is also a part of the diversity debate which the mainstream media can’t seem to wrap its selfrighteous narrow activism around fully.

But these are issues I explore on my radio show — one of the few. www.RadioChicagoland.com. You can hear Mitchell’s interview on the show podcast for 12-29-08.

– Ray Hanania

www.radiochicagoland.com

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Motor City to Motor shitty is the inside joke of many suburban residents in Michigan.
Detroit, once the industrial capital of the United States has withered to nothing but abandoned building, crack houses, bare city streets and a city council that can’t accomplish anything, even if paid millions, or by abusing the system for millions… hint hint… thanks former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick!

Just recently on My Facebook posting I asked “How can we fix Detroit? Many Facebook friends were pleased that someone has asked the question, but unfortunately, although 90% of my Facebook friends are from Michigan, there were only a minimal number of responses. One of the responses suggested bull dozing down the city and maintaining farmland afterwards. Another response suggested dividing the land into specific areas and assigning individual contractors to a portion of land with the responsibility to fix and maintain that area – which will probably cost millions. Another person even suggested bombing it! – This I found to be extremely disturbing.

Detroit is full of creative and talented people but unfortunately the city has not created a platform on which the citizens can perform. There is no foundation in place. The Detroit Public School Systems is a disaster with measly staff abusing the system and not doing their jobs properly… staff isn’t working and students aren’t learning!

Last year, after the Kwame Kilpatrick Mishap and Kenneth Cockrel was sworn into office as Mayor, I interviewed Mayor Kenneth Cockrel at a dinner function in Dearborn, Michigan. I asked, “What is currently being done to fix the Detroit Public School System and make it a successful school district?” Mr. Cockrel went on immediately to say that the school board and city council are separate entities and that the school board handles all of the school matters.” This is the type of non-chalant answer that doesn’t address the issues or suggest ways of correcting the system, this nothing but what I call a finger-pointing response. Although the current structure does not allow both entities to have jurisdiction over the Detroit Public School System, how about collaborating and attacking the issues at hand. This is no longer only the school boards problem; it has now become everyone’s problem!

For many years it upset me to see Detroit abused and weakened tremendously. In 2007, at a coffee shop in West Bloomfield, MI, I was having a debate with an attorney on how to fix Detroit. The attorney who shall remain nameless, immediately stated that we need correct the Detroit Public School System and make sure that the have the resources and staff to do their job properly. I asked “how do you suggest they receive the funds for the additional resources and staff, especially when the school system is currently millions of dollars in debt?” He didn’t have a response. I immediately stated “What we need to do is attract and retain multiple industries to take up commercial space in Detroit. The entire city needs to be filled with hotels, restaurants, box stores, retail, and other service – oriented industries.” And the way we lure them in is by offering a 10-year property tax free incentive! As retail and commercial property begins to fill-up the city, this creates employment for the people of the city of Detroit… the industry will attract more people, there will be more cash flow, the residential value will rise, homes will be sold, remodeled and occupied, creating more traffic for the city and more tax dollars for the school system.

Almost two years later while driving with a friend in Elk Grove Village, IL, I suggested the same plan to fix Detroit, and my companion at the time told me the history of Elk Grove Village, IL. Sometime in the 1950’s, after World War II, suburban Chicago was trying to attract industrial parks to generate tax revenue and an economic base for employment. Elk Grove Village offered a tax incentive to attract industrial and warehouse facilities to their municipalities. Elk Grove offered a certain number of property tax free years for occupants. Elk Grove then grew at an exponential rate and became one of the richest communities in the United States supported by ever increasing tax dollars, which was all done by building their tax base and recouping their original tax breaks.

So at this time, especially with a 45 % unemployment rate, it may be beneficial for Detroit to adopt a similar plan… What is there to lose anyway?

Jennifer Isso
News Reporter/ News Anchor

November is Arab Heritage Month in Chicago, and unofficially in Illinois.

(I pause now for the mandatory 20 minutes of silence as the tumbleweeds race across the quiet streets and defeaning silence. There ate tumbleweeds in Chicago. We call them Aldermen, but tumbleweeds, nonetheless.)

All clear? Good.

Chicago was one of the first cities to create “Arab Heritage Month,” thanks to the efforts of the late Mayor Harold Washington, Chicago’s first African American mayor and someone who immediately recognized the enormous potential of “diversity” among voter support. Real diversity, of course, not with any color lines or barriers. He launched many efforts to recognize Arab Americans and other “off-the-radar” groups.

Since then, Mayor Daley has pretty much buried the event, holding a very low-profile event in which very few mainstream media are pushed to attend — when Daley pushes the media, they usually show up. He’s the “Boss-let,” you know. And they often serve Arabian snacks and food. At one city sponsored event for Arab Americans, they had piles of “sphee-ha,” or spinach pies — which are tops in Arabian snacks. That same week was news that Spinach was contaminated. (Okay, I’m NOT saying they served bad food, folks. But, for some reason that was a big month for spinach related foods in my community.)

We get food, but we rarely get media coverage at Arab American heritage events. At least, not the kind of coverage given to other communities. Two years ago I and several Arab American journalists in NAAJA’s Chicago Chapter lobbied WLS TV, the Chicago ABC affiliate, and they did three stories. This year, they picked up and did at least one that I know of. (Pause for the silence, again.)

Daley then gets up and makes a long winded speech about how he admires Arab Americans, acknowledges their contributions, and cites several in the community, including many who help raise money for his re-election campaigns. Well. We can’t call it a “re-election.” It’s more like a coronation.

But if Daley really cared about Arab Americans, he’d give us more than an “honorary month,” a pat on the back, and the same old, same old kind words he always gives. Admittedly, I haven’t attended a Daley Dinner — that’s what they call it, “Mayor Daley’s Reception” in honor of Arab Heritage Month, for several years. I’m a columnist. The big “C” for cynical. I drip with cynicsim. That’s my job. To question the motives of the people who get paid with our tax dollars and make us think they are doing us a favor. This year, it is Nov. 13. And it is “Invitation Only.”

Well, Mayor Daley. If you wanted to do us a favor, you would appoint a few Arab Americans as Cabinet Officers. Maybe make an Arab American Commissioner of the Police Department. (That would get President Bush’s and Vice President Dick Cheney’s undies in a bunch.) How about make an Arab American chairman of the Chicago Board of Education? Maybe appoint one to be an alderman. Although I am not sure that is really much of an honor?

I guess I get jaded a bit when I turn ont he television and radio stations and open newspapers and am inundated in endless streams of copy about African American Heritage Month and Hispanic Heritage Month. (We did have an “ArabFest” of sorts this past summer. It was held at Daley Plaza during the lunch hour. I am not sure all the plaza lunchers actually realized they were part of the statistical counting that proclaimed the event an “attendance” success.)

I would just like to be similarly annoyed one day with so many stories about Arab Americans that DON’T have anything to do with Iraq, the Arab-Israeli Conflict, terrorism, methamphetamine, or immigration violations. So annoyed by the “Not another story about Arab Heritage” that I start complaining about that, instead of about this. It’s a dream I have. One of many on the pile.

Ray Hanania

There is a mad rush of media from the dying print side to the exploding Internet side. Journalists who once typed and called in copy and thrilled at seeing their writing in print are now steadily moving to the Fifth Estate on the Internet believing that it’s the vehicle of the news that is dying not the substance.

Click here to read one of hundreds of similar reports.

I’m not knocking the reporters in the report. But I am saying that the problems of the mainstream media are not about how they deliver news and information to the public. The problem has been the arrogance of the mainstream media which for many years and continues to be predominantly not only White but also “White-minded.”

The new Fifth Estate on the Internet is a new media that is more open to diversity and new thinking. The old media shut out new thought and was operated like a fraternity or a clique. It was a form of pack-journalism zealotry that kept many new ideas off their pages, and that ignored and avoided coverage of certain communities. News stories were chosen based not only on whether the story would draw readership (and thereby strengthen profits) but also on whether the news fit the ideology of the Editorial Management of the newspaper.

Then along comes the Internet, now the Fifth Estate, I like to call it. And it didn’t attract mainstream journalism or thought but suddenly opened up a door to everyone who has ever been excluded from the mainstream news media and who still subscribed to newspapers. As a journalist for 32 years or more I can’t drop the habit of holding a newspaper when I read news, but the people flocking to the Internet were not mainstream readers who loved the newspapers. They were mainstream readers who felt their were being marginalized and that they were being excluded in the limited and narrow coverage of newspapers like the Chicago Tribune.

So these lost voices found a place where they could broadcast their own views without editors deciding whether news was news or not news any more. And they built the Internet. This problem has been the main reason why readers have fled the mainstream media and why the mainstream media is dying.

So if you simply re-engineer the old print formula to the new online format and think that’s going to work, you will merely be wasting a lot of money Because the Internet is the Wild West, still, and there are more choices out there for readers. The people who despised the arrogance of the mainstream media in print will not be any less disenchanted with mainstream media product, former print, trying to resell themselves online.

It’s not going to work. What’s needed is a mindset change. We need to redefine what is really news and redefine news from what an elitist editor believes should be reported and what the common reader is interested in reading. And if you can’t do that, you won’t survive the new media revolution.

The air is cleaner on the Fifth Estate than it ever was in the Fourth Estate.

– Ray Hanania

www.RadioChicagoland.com

When we talk about race or ethnicity in elections, we are usually speaking about the Top Tier of racial and ethnic groups, not all of them. The Top Tier groups include, traditionally, Black (African American), Hispanic (Latino, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans), Asians, and some White (majority) groups including Irish, Italian, Polish, German (most European racial or ethnic groups). Occasionally Native Americans are included, although not always. Other voter constituencies exist based on religion, too, such as Jewish and Christian.

There is a second tier of racial and ethnic groups that have also been knocking at America’s door over the past two decades, but the door has only opened slightly, held back by the mainstream media, and, surprisingly, by the leadership of many of the racial and ethnic groups above who fear that there are only a certain number of seats at the table and by letting more “ethnic or racial groups” in they will be forced to surrender seats they now hold in order to share. None of the top tier racial or ethnic groups look at “inclusion” as a means of expanding the table and seating, only a “sharing” of what they have.

That’s why, for example, some board members at UNITY: Journalists of Color, was so reluctant to open the door over the past four years to many in the Second Tier Racial and Ethnic (STRE) groups. Who are they? You are seeing more and more of them beating on the glass ceiling, the jammed door and on the American Dream.

They include American Arabs, Indians, Pakistanis, Muslims (as a group, some of the first tier racial and ethnic groups include some Muslims but they are not identified as Muslims, per se), and generally anyone outside of the groups listed in the First Tier Racial and Ethnic categories.

Ironically, the election of President Barack Obama, whose middle name is “Hussein” and who was raised by a non-mainstream “Muslim” father from Kenya, has opened the door wider for the Second Tier Racial and Ethnic Groups. But how far will only be seen in the upcoming political elections throuhout this nation in the coming years.

How do we measure this growth in Second Tier Racial and Ethnic group’s empowerment? Mainly by measuring their public identity in either a_ roles of activism and b) acceptance and recognition by society. In the first group, we start to see Second Tier individuals appearing on government commissions, community leadership, participating in community parades, business levels and more. Their names — usually very easily identified — are seen in news stories, usually about controversies. In the second instance, governments and societies take formal steps to recognize them.

In the case of American Arabs, more and more states are recognizing “Arab American Heritage Months.” (You can see a list of these events at the home page of the National Arab American Times Newspaper’s calendar listings for 2010. www.AATimesNews.com/calendar.htm.)  Out of 50 states, at least eight have designated months (and some, weeks) as recurring, annual  Arab Heritage celebrations.

That’s huge, but far from mainstream, of course.

But the most significant measure of empowerment for these Second Tier Racial and Ethnic Groups comes from the elections. How many STRE’s run for public office? Place their name into nomination? Fill out the paperwork and end up on a ballot?

There are American Arabs who do hold public office. But it is an interesting phenomena in which only in the past 15 years have they started to identify themselves aggressively as being “Arab American.” There is a difference in someone being Arab, for example, and declaring that they are Arab. Each has their benefits and disadvantages.

Generally, if you are labeled as an Arab American or American Arab (as I prefer), you embrace huge hurdles of resistance and public animosity, especially since Sept. 11, 2001. (Although Americans are becoming more and more tolerant of American Arabs and Muslims and are moving from hatred towards them to desiring more understanding. Read my recent column on the topic?)

It’s a struggle when you look at all the challenges, though, that STREs such as American Arabs must face.

We do not have a significant presence in the mainstream media: In many case we are excluded from jobs and from positive news coverage (we’re always in the negative adversarial news and opinion writing). Despite being in mainstream politics since the 1960s, the diversity in Arab ethnicity (Lebanese, Palestinians, Jordanians, Egyptians and Syrians, among the 22 national Arab origins) has been weak. The majority of American Arabs in public office are of Lebanese heritage. Their success comes from two important factors: they were among the first to settle in the United States in large numbers and to assimilate. Their assimilation also was accommodated by the fact that most are Christian and we all know that politics doesn’t start in the home, it starts in the Christian Church and the various church activism groups in and out of the so-called “Bible Belt.”

But that doesn’t mean there are not some successes under the microscope. For example, when Barack Obama made his speech on health care reform to the joint session of Congress (that Congressman joe Wilson shamefully interrupted by yelling his hateful scream “You Lie”)  American Arabs and Muslims were subliminally represented. President Obama, having a background in the Muslim World, though he is a Christian with an Arab name, was one. The other was Louisiana’s Congressman Charles Boustany, an American Arab, who gave the Republican Party response.

Ironically, mainstream American Arabs embrace conservative family values and many of the conservative views shared by Republicans, but vote on issues related against discrimination and racism, and championed by the Democrats. It doesn’t help that American Arabs can’t more clearly identify themselves one way or another (Blacks and Hispanics generally are viewed as Democratic although that is changing.)

In a recent column in the Chicago Sun-Times, my writer friend Esther Cepeda addresses the growth in ethnic identity in elections this coming year in Illinois. (Read the column?) She talks about Greek candidates, Hispanic candidates and Indian candidates who are leading fields for party nominations — most Democrats.

Will it change?

It all depends on the Second Tier Racial and Ethnic groups. Will they fight to change it? American Arabs were discriminated against as much before Sept. 11,2 001 as they were after Sept. 11, 2001. So Sept. 11, 2001 is not an excuse, although the terrorism seemed to fuel the existing discrimination and raise it to a higher level of animosity. (It was always there, but after 9/11, some American racists simply didn’t hide their animosity, fear or anger and took actions with, in many cases, impunity.)

It’s important for all Second Tier Racial and Ethnic groups to engage the political system, fight to enter the profession of journalism — it doesn’t just require an education, you WILL have a fight on your hands to get into the professional news media — and the will to survive constant “failure.” But those failures are merely battles. They don’t represent the war. The war will be won, if they keep fighting.

– Ray Hanania

www.TheMediaOasis.com