Press Interpreter

I am often struck by how little of the Al-Jazeera-style news that is supposed to dominate the Arab world's understanding of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars reaches English speaking readers, myself included.

Le Monde notes on its home page that London and Washington have shown approval for the decision to execute Saddam Hussein, while Madrid, Paris, and Rome have reiterated their opposition to the death penalty. After describing the verdict, however, the New York Times leads with an account of spontaneous celebrations that broke out in Iraq. The article makes no mention of continental disapproval or of British support, although it does quote Human Rights Watch, which raised questions about the fairness of the trial.

The Times has now put a story reporting on the pre-verdict crackdown in Baghdad on its front page (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/05/world/middleeast/05iraq.html?hp&ex=1162702800&en=d4e2d21eed03b766&ei=5094&partner=homepage ), some hours after Le Monde started reporting a similar story (see my previous post).

It is telling about the extent to which the Saddam trial has lost the legitimacy that some United Stateseans once hoped it would have that on the eve of the verdict the French paper Le Monde is giving more prominent coverage to it than the New York Times. Le Monde reports on its home page that "Iraq is on Alert Before the Announcement of the Verdict Against Saddam" ( http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3218,36-830706@51-830708,0.html ). The article in the New York Times, "Hussein Sentence May Come on Sunday," ( http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/04/world/middleeast/04saddam.html?ref=world ) is available only in the "World" section.

Our own daily lives are imaginary. The rest of the world more so.

I read The New York Times, The Washington Post, and wire stories off of Yahoo News. These three sources circumscribe my vision of the world. They are the forms of my perception.