Media Reports Of Lebanese Reconstruction
298 words.
I’ve seen several media reports discussing the reconstruction in southern Lebanon, all of which seem to go out of their way to mention that Hezbollah is right there to help out the poor displaced citizens with food, medicine, and money, while everyone else’s relief efforts are slow and ineffectual. The implication, of course, is that Hezbollah is a powerful organization, and much better suited to govern southern Lebanon than anyone else.
A couple of things make me suspicious of this reporting. First of all, Hezbollah controlled everything that outside reporters saw during the war (see Anderson Cooper’s Strange Day With Hezbollah), and I would think that trend would continue during the reconstruction. So it’s not hard to imagine that reporters are only allowed to see areas where Hezbollah is cheerfully giving out humanitarian aid, and that reporters are only allowed to talk to residents who are happy with Hezbollah’s efforts. It’s not even hard to imagine that reporters are “encouraged” (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) to make note of how much faster Hezbollah is handling the humanitarian crisis.
The second problem I have with this reporting is that nobody is pointing out the obvious: Of course Hezbollah is going to be there first with humanitarian aid. They live there! Their military bases are right in the middle of the towns! Not only does everyone else have to trudge over the destroyed roads and bridges to get there, but they probably have to get Hezbollah’s permission to enter the region at all.
(Side note: I’ve ragged on NBC a lot in the past, but I should point out that NBC’s Martin Savidge ended his report on Lebanese reconstruction last night with a sharp remark on the irony that Hezbollah triggered the war that destroyed everyone’s homes in the first place.)
Sorry, new comments are disabled on older posts. This helps reduce spam. Active commenting almost always occurs within a day or two of new posts.