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I opened the front page of yesterday’s N.Y. Times Magazine and was greeted by a two page spread promoting Israeli tourism and the 60th anniversary celebration. It was a bit of a shocker. Here’s the copy:
You’ll love Israel from the first “Shalom.” Who can say “Shalom” more eloquently than Maya Weiser? She found her first love–dance–when she was six. She became a member of the Bat Sheva Dance Company, performing in the beautiful Susanne Lelall Center in Tel Aviv, and at New York’s Lincoln Center. Recently she found a second love–saving the animals–so she is studying animal science at Hebrew University. Her next love? A considerable number of young men have their hopes up. Meanwhile, she dances and lives with her cat in the same Tel Aviv apartment where her father grew up.
Israel. We hope to see you soon. Shalom!
I’m no expert on NY Times ad rates but I figure this had to cost them at least $250,000. Here’s background on the campaign:
Israel`s Ministry of Tourism has launched a multi-million dollar advertising campaign in North America, designed to boost tourism to Israel from the United States and Canada. The budget for the campaign is an unprecedented $11 million…
“Our goal,” explains Sommer, “is to deflect the constant barrage of negative news images of Israel, and to show the country as it really is: sophisticated, hip, ancient, modern, friendly, spiritual and beautiful.”
What a waste! Not that it is a waste to promote Israel. On the contrary. But it is a waste to promote Israel under false pretences such as this. Look at this image: a beautiful girl, a strikingly modern city skyline. And look at the cool, clear, pristine reflection of the buildings in the water. The flash of this ad is betrayed by the murkiness of almost everything going on within Israel society now. The ad’s clean lines mask an underlying social reality. An Occupation. A nation adrift in despondency in the aftermath of the Lebanon war. A society buffeted by high-level sex and corruption scandals.
And speaking of “spiritual,” let’s juxtapose this ad with today’s headline:
Four children killed in Israeli attack
A PALESTINIAN mother and her four children were killed while eating breakfast yesterday in Gaza when Israeli missiles struck…their house…
I’m no advertising expert so I can’t tell Israel how to promote itself. But I can tell Israel that as long as these headlines come out practically daily, there isn’t a hope in hell that its $11-million tourism campaign will convince anyone other than Israel’s die hard supporters that “No one belongs here more than you,” as the campaign slogan inveigles.
I think the thing that really broke the spell for me regarding this ad was the come-on for all the eligibile male bachelors in the audience–the promise that you too might win Maya Weiser’s hand and heart for your very own…if you but make that trip to Israel. Touching.
Comment is Free, Wikipedia, and Why Blogs ‘Don’t Get No Respect’
Monday, April 28th, 2008Some of you may know that the English newspaper, The Guardian, is expanding its coverage of the U.S. It’s website has a global reach and now has a significant portion of its readers here in this country. As part of this expansion, Comment is Free, the Guardian’s daily blog about politics and international affairs will be adding a U.S. section come June.
The Washington DC editor asked me if I would contribute a weekly column to CiF. This is really a dream come true for me. When you first start blogging as I did in 2003, you sometimes feel like you’re shouting down a dark hole and all you hear in reply is your own echo. It’s gratifying when the mainstream media validates the value of your work.
In addition, there is still a significant percentage of people who look down their noses at political blogs as a reliable research source of information or opinion. Usually those people are the ones who disagree with your views to begin with and their dismissiveness tends to confirm their opinions in a loop of circular reasoning. I appreciate the Guardian granting its imprimatur to my work. It goes some ways toward combating this prejudice.
A perfect example of this is Wikipedia, the world’s largest source of online research. It has a deeply confusing attitude toward blogs as sources for Wikipedia articles. Generally, they are frowned upon as unreliable since they are self-published sources, a definite no-no in the Wikipedia world. However, if you are a genuine expert in the field you write about, then blogs can be accepted as sources:
But it seems up to the blogger and Wikipedia members to sort out whether you are an expert or not. If you consider yourself an expert, and even if your blog presents original research on a topic, if another member disagrees they can remove your links at will and quote you irrelevant chapter and verse to “justify” their actions.
In my case, there are several members who have campaigned to remove references to my blog (read my Talk page) in Wikipedia articles arguing that by linking to my blog I’ve created a conflict of interest. Given that the conflict of interest rules were created mainly to prevent commercial entities from either promoting themselves or tearing down their rivals, they aren’t relevant to my situation. They also argue that despite my background in the field about which I write, since I am not a professional journalist, author, or academic, my contributions are not trustworthy and not disinterested. Considering that Wikipedia exists online and exploits all the opportunities that the web offers to disseminate knowledge, I find it ironic that it’s standards are so conventional. Either you write a book, newspaper or magazine article, or academic journal article if you wish to be an acceptable source. Write a blog and you’re chopped liver.
A senior Wikipedia editor I respect recently wrote to me about a phenomenon called “wikilawyering,” a tendency, as the online encyclopedia grows ever larger and more complicated, to parse the rules to an incredibly fine degree. In Talmudic interpretation it’s known as pilpul or in English ‘casuistry.’ He examined the work of my opponents and told me that it was such an example. I’m hoping to be working with him and other sympathetic Wikipedia members to figure out how serious political blogs can be treated with more respect within the Wikipedia universe.
And should anyone reading this edit Wikipedia articles, I’d welcome my work being referenced and linked there.
Though the pay at CiF isn’t much, at least I am getting paid. I remember a hilarious story Calvin Trillin wrote I believe in the New Yorker about a nice lunch The Nation’s editor treated him to over a discussion of his becoming a contributing writer. Trillin relates jocularly that the fee for his pieces was to be “in the low three figures.” But three figures is better than no figures.
My English friend, Michael Furmanovsky wrote to me saying: “You should be proud to be contributing to the best newspaper in the world.” As a dyed in the wool NY Times reader I find it difficult to transfer that title to The Guardian. But the truth is that the Times has nowhere near the diversity of political opinion in its pages that The Guardian does. This is proven by the fact that it is The Guardian and not the Times which has developed Comment is Free, a terrific means of integrating the best of the blog world into mainstream media.
The Guardian truly lets a thousand flowers bloom. The Times seems to specialize in a limited and carefully selected number of hot-house flowers. It’s a different journalistic philosophy and while I value both–as a writer I’m especially grateful for The Guardian’s approach.
I want to continue encouraging readers to provide story ideas to me along with links and any other background information that is necessary to write it.
Tags: blogs, comment-is-free, the-guardian
Posted in Blogs-Tech-Science, Mideast Peace | 4 Comments »