The Press on the Israeli Elections

With the constant barrage of the United States Presidential election little news is being covered about other foreign elections. The Canadian elections happened with little press recognition. However, the news story of the collapse of the Israeli government administering coalition has received extensive coverage. The press on the Israeli elections that will take place in February 2009 has been covered by both the mainstream media and the blogging community.

I chose to compare an article published by the Economist, titled “Into the Electoral Maze,” which can be found at: http://www.economist.com/world/mideast-africa/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12516472 with a blog that is posted PoliGazette, “Livni Calls for Snap Elections in Israel” which can be found at: http://www.poligazette.com/2008/10/26/livni-calls-for-snap-elections-in-israel/

Both the blog and the article give background information leading up to the collapse of the Israeli government’s coalition. However, the Economist’s article gives a much more in depth look at these events as well as provides technical description of the Israeli parliamentary system.

Another interesting and major difference between the two publications is that the blog solely focuses on Livini, and makes sweeping judgments about her character. The article has a much wider scope. It does not solely focus on a candidate but the entire electoral system of Israel and its shortcomings “Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, will dissolve itself on November 11th but can reconvene if urgent legislation is needed. So for the next four or five months, Israel will be without a government likely to take big new initiatives or make tough decisions, especially on the international front.” In doing so it starts to explore how larger international issues will be affected such as peace talks with Syria and the Palestinians.

The blog provides a personal opinion saying that Livni will be a “heck of a leader” and designates her “a woman of principle”.


Both the blog and the article try to use factual events to support their analysis of personalities. The Economist article however, discusses personalities of all three contenders (not only Livni). This has a very different effect, the reader of the article is given three different people from which to judge where as the blogs single focus on Livni will bring the reader more to only one conclusion.

Another major distinction is that the blog predicts a winner (not in line of its support previously stated).

From an Israeli stand point of view the Economist’s article provides a much more accurate account of the situation on the ground in Israel. The Economist even provides an accurate brief glimpse into the attitude of Israelis [“Inexperienced” is sometimes an Israeli euphemism for not having been a general.]. Whereas the blogs admiration for Livni did not give any kind of measure of how she perceived at home.

Chinese Milk

The idea of consumerism gained momentum in the 20th century, the advent of the internet and especially blogs has given consumerism the ultimate tool, a forum controlled by consumers to reach other consumers. For this reason I thought it would interesting to take an analytical look at how the Mainstream media presents a story that effects consumers around the world as opposed to how consumers and consumer watchdogs present the same story.

Both forums report on China's ongoing scandal of tainted milk that has killed numerous children. For the mainstream media perspective I took a story from BBC "Chinese Milk Fears Spread in Asia" which can be found at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7631265.stmFor the consumerism presentation of the story I took a post from the "Milk Documentary Blog" which can be found at: http://blog.gotthefactsonmilk.com/2008/10/16/chinas-tainted-milk-spreads-affects-the-world.aspx?ref=rss.

The blog discusses the accepted governmental standards for chemical presence in milk and compares it to the U.S. perspective of what is acceptable.The number of deaths are reported as the same but most interestingly is the difference in reporting on the extent of the crisis. The blog sites that the milk has made over 10,000 babies sick and the BBC article says that it only made 13,000 sick.

Also interestingly the BBC article names the company that is responsible something that you would assume that consumers would want to be made known but does not get pointed out in the blog.Initially the article seems to place more blame on one particular company as opposed to a government or a wider spread problem.

Whereas the blog seems to point to a lack of standards in China as the main culprit. However later in the article the author says 22 other companies have been identified as part of the problem and the BBC article even talks about companies and countries that are pulling or testing all Chinese dairy products.Despite being explicit the article does not propose the possibility that the crisis was the result of intentional conduct.

The blog mentions this and how the chemical is used in milk in order falsify quality standards.Finally, the article takes the time to mention parents and their concerns for their children which is more likely to have an impact on every day readers but the blog invokes greater consequences of international trade implications.

Iranian blog portrays presidential elections

Iranian blog portrays presidential elections

Contrary to most countries, in Iran blogs have become the primary source for reliable information for the general public. Due to the extensive control over media and other information outlets by the Iranian government the Iranian public often turn to blogs that have managed to fly under the censorship radar in order to get news and information. For this reason I thought it would be interesting to compare an Iranian news blog story with a Western media story. The next comparison will take a story and compare how it is reported by a blog and by the Iranian state media.

I took a Reuters article “Iran to Hold Presidential Election in June 2009” (http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSDAH72494220080907) and a blog entry found on Tehran Post titled “8 Months til Iranian Presidential Election” (http://ord-per.blogspot.com/2008/09/8-months-to-iranian-presidential.html).

Since the story that I chose is about Iran itself, the blog offered a much more in depth look at the situation on the ground.

The blog discusses the inner workings of Iranian politics – that the ‘reformists’ are trying to spur competition between the moderate party (Khatami) and hardline party (Ahmadinjhad). The article on Reuters does not even come close to level of detail presented in the blog, instead they give a general conclusive statement.

The blog unlike the Reuters article gives an opinion on the situation – that Khatami’s return as president would be a bad thing for Iran).

Both sources of media mention a third candidate as a plausible rival to Khatami and Ahmadinijhad. However, they mention different names. The blog’s plausible third candidate is a name that I have never heard mentioned in any Western Media (Mehdi Karrobi, a parliament spokesperson). Whereas, the article’s third plausible candidate is the mayor Tehran.

Another interesting difference was the issues that the two stories focused on. The blog focuses on honesty, reform, democracy and the actual functioning of the country. Whereas Reuters mainly focuses on Iran’s international relations, meaning solely the nuclear showdown with the west, an issue the blog doesn’t not mention at all. Finally, they both mention a key internal issue – the Iranian economy.

Presidential Debate: 1st round

I chose to write on the topic of ‘who was the victor’ of the first 2008 presidential debate. There are always two sides to a story but this topic is especially interesting in that the story itself is one single documented event viewed by millions. Rarely in the news do we have such lack of ambiguity in a news story but yet the outcome is interpreted as totally different accountants by many different sides. The media coverage of this phenomena was not as varied. I took an Associated Press story “Who won debate? TV pundits don’t agree on a winner” (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080927/ap_en_tv/tv_debate_night) and compared it a story that was posted in The Presidential Debate Blog “Parsing the Instant Polls on the First Presidential Debate: A Guest Post by Professor George Bishop” (http://presidentialdebateblog.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2008-09-29T10%3A55%3A00-07%3A00&max-results=7).

Interestingly enough the blog provided an outlet for an expert on debates and polling as opposed to the Associated Press Article which was written by one of AP’s journalists (who is not a political correspondent)

Most likely due to this the blog is much more informative and analytical than the news article

The article focuses more on the media and its role of the speculation of “who won the debate” and the blog discusses more the mechanisms and pitfalls of the actual polling process that were behind the polls that were reported on.

Neither superimposed an answer to the question they were analyzing but the blog seemed to supply evidence that suggested that the answer was that Obama won the election and the article although more balanced still supplied 3 quotes in favor of Obama as opposed to the 2 quotes in favor of McCain.

The blog is also the only one that acknowledges that it is hard to tell where the debate’s influence starts and stops especially with all of the other current events that are receiving heavy media attention and their influence on public opinion.