I’ve rediscovered the value of local news channels. Via the Egyptian Ahram Online.
In its capacity as a “local news channel” that I seek, I am looking for it to present its particular brand of foreignness (the type which knows that everyone else is foreign). Ahram Online achieves this via three means, each of which may be contrasted (partly for amusement’s sake) with Australian commercial television news.
First, it demonstrates an inevitable obsession with anything occurring within its nation’s borders. (Cf. The horrendous special interest, “local area man” style stories, all the worse when they are included while real [international] news is not).
Second, it sees the world from its nation’s own region, in this case, a curious combination of North Africa, the Middle East, and the Islamic and Arabic worlds. (Cf. Australia which only sort-of sees south-east Asia as the centre of the world. The partiality is likely related to the historical idealized segregation between white, European Australia and Asians, but is confounded by contemporary and practical relations within the region. Australia also gathers its perspectives from England and the United States).
And thirdly, its perspective onto the rest of the world is always a consideration seen from within itself. It does these things in the most obvious way by the “news” it selects to present, i.e. in the act of selection. (Cf. Australia seems to generally – and as more countries are it seems – follow the United State’s media’s lead in deciding what is newsworthy). But in addition to pure news, there is value also – and this is a mode that should not be dismissed – in the opinion editorials. These are important too because they articulate (hopefully the range of) the population’s opinions, and also what are the various (local) concerns about news event x. Consider the same event x might be reported identically when done so in a minimalistic news-speak, but that it might have a unique set of opinions when dissected by the different populations.
So to conclude by recapping: I was seeking a somehow better coverage of events currently occurring in Egypt and revolving around their civil strife and uncertain government, and among the site found was one called Ahram Online (based on the newspaper Al-Ahram). I was impressed by this site’s quality of its news coverage and (or including) opinion/editorial pieces. In reading this news site – and not limiting my reading to my initial interest (regarding the protests) but even reading about focuses outside Egypt – I gained benefits that are common to truly local news channels, and in doing so was reminded of the manner in which these benefits are in fact common to all local news media. Above I had summarised those benefits into a rough trilogy, and I repeat them here in brief; local news media offer certain advantages: they focus on a locality that is otherwise foreign; they measure the world and estimates differently what it considers to be regions of importance in a manner that is foreign; and thirdly, all international news is perceived through spectacles in a shade of its own locality and based on an interest that depends and is construed depending on the locality’s identity and all that is inherent within that identity.
