Patterico's Pontifications

2/17/2011

Updates on Lara Logan and the Revolutions in the Muslim World

Filed under: General — Aaron Worthing @ 11:44 am



[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here.]

Yeah, I am kind of sweeping two tangentially related topics together, but I try to keep my posts to only five per day, and I am bucking up against  that ceiling.

Anyway, first we learn that she’s out of the hospital, although still recuperating.  Tomorrow it will have been a full week since the attack, suggesting something of the brutality of it.

At the same link we learn she got a call from Obama.  Ugh.  Nothing against Obama himself—I mean every president in my lifetime would have done the same thing—but why does the President feel like he has to make the call?  We really need to get away from the idea that the President is supposed to be a great moral leader or something like that.

In a related item, Richard Cohen pretty much agrees with me that CBS should not have suppressed this story:

As I’m sure even Logan would admit, the sexual assault of woman by a mob in the middle of a public square is a story. It is particularly a story because the crowd in Tahir Square was almost invariably characterized as friendly and out for nothing but democracy. In fact, some of the television correspondents acted as if they were reporting from Times Square on New Year’s Eve, stopping only at putting on a party hat. In those circumstances, a mass… sexual assault in what amounted to the nighttime version of broad daylight is certainly worth reporting….

Still, the assault and its undertones of pogromist anti-Semitism (Logan is not Jewish) is very troubling and, at the very least, suggests that not everyone in Tahrir Square that night had democracy on their mind. I feel badly for Logan and wish her well. But she’s a newswoman, and what happened to her in Tahir Square was news. CBS should not have withheld that story.

So, I am agreeing with Richard Cohen.  That feels really weird…

And on a similar note Michael Graham goes for the jugular: CBS complicit in news coverup.

I don’t object very strenuously in the ordinary situation where a woman is sexually assaulted and we tell the world what happened to her, but not her name.  But they reversed that exactly, here, telling us who it happened to, and not what happened.  And that is the wrong call.  The first instinct of any news organization is to share more information, not less.

Also the Daily Beast has more about the harassment women face in Egypt.  So it had less to do with the revolution than Egyptian culture, or so Ursula Lindsey claims.

Meanwhile, are you having trouble keeping up with what countries are having protests?  Well, Marian Wang has wrapped it all up and put a bow on it, here.  Or well, got a lot of it.  One interesting wrinkle is from Glenn Reynolds:

Dave Foulk, a Knoxville radio news guy, emails: “I just spoke with a person in Bahrain, and they indicated to me that Saudi tanks and APC’s were coming across the causeway into Bahrain. Says the video of it is on YouTube. This individual was spot-on with warnings of protests the other day.” I couldn’t find the video on YouTube, but stay tuned.

I believe that would be the first time a neighboring country sent troops in to quell unrest in this rash of protests.  The House of Saud must be getting worried.

I feel that we are very close to a real tipping point here.  Hopefully we will tilt toward more freedom.  We can only hope.

[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]

37 Responses to “Updates on Lara Logan and the Revolutions in the Muslim World”

  1. Here’s a tip for finding videos on YouTube. Go to Google’s translation widget, and translate your English keywords into arabic, the fewer the better. Then copy & paste the result into YouTube’s search box & enter. Then click on the search options, and sort them by upload date, newest first. The first couple, in gray shading, will be old features, the next will be the results.

    The Sanity Inspector (ef5d4d)

  2. Oh, and most of the Arabic language YouTube results will have a translation option button.

    The Sanity Inspector (ef5d4d)

  3. There are reports coming out of Bahrain of a military crackdown there, with some casualties.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  4. There is no such thing as a ‘people’s right to know’ what happened to a reporter for a non-government owned news organization.

    Icy Texan (4325bb)

  5. I would caution that we know for certain that prior to Mubarak leaving, his administration sent out thugs to do violence, at least sometimes purporting to be freedom protesters, in order to discredit the protesters. Mubarak is gone, but the thugs are certainly not, so it could be them behind the brutal attack (and others that occurred around the same time). It’s far too early to tell whether this should reflect in any way on the general category of protesters.

    PatHMV (3bea46)

  6. I agree with Icy Texan (you’ve had a chance to live up to your name this winter, haven’t you?), so that’s two against two.

    Not that we’re saying nothing should be reported, but it would have been enough to say she was attacked, they were shouting anti-semitic phrases, and she’s in the hospital recovering. With that in the news release it is not quite as awkward picking your children up from day care.

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  7. I think they withheld any of the story for a few days, right? I agree that’s wrong. We don’t need to know every detail of what happened to her tho.

    The beating and worse of reporters is not a big story because it wrecks The Narrative. That’s always the case.

    Patricia (3aa1fd)

  8. I agree there is no right to know what happened to a private person but once CBS elected to name Logan and report what happened to her, it strikes me as selective story-telling to act like the rest of the story is off-limits. It’s like a secret — once you tell it to someone, it’s no longer a secret. Similarly, once CBS decided to report what happened to Logan, either it did so with her consent or it knowingly jeopardized her privacy rights.

    DRJ (fdd243)

  9. I am confident we will learn the entire story.

    Here’s a great video of Lara.

    She’s hardly perfect, but she is so much better than, say, Katie Couric. Frankly, she’s got a lot more horsepower upstairs, and doesn’t have to resort to the kinds of lame rhetorical stunts I hear from a lot of compensating type news personalities. This is a person who is aware of problems in journalism, and interested in the big picture of informing Americans.

    I think this person will eventually want to share with us exactly what it was like in that protest for her. But I don’t mind if it takes a few weeks of her getting back on her feet.

    Dustin (b54cdc)

  10. This is weird. I don’t think I’ve ever had such a strong disagreement with DRJ before.

    Once CBS announced that something happened they were obligated to report in-depth details? Why? This isn’t a major story. It really is okay for them to engage in “selective story-telling”.

    BTW, I’m thinking that the report they issued was made WITH her consent, since nobody knows ANYTHING to the contrary.

    Icy Texan (4325bb)

  11. And yes, there is an antiwar spirit to some of what Lara says, for example when she says she personally feels responsible for the fact that many Americans do not fully absorb what a US Casualty looks like, or the fact we weren’t appreciating that Afghanistan is more deadly than Iraq for our troops.

    Jon makes a point that something happening all the time in Iraq, just a car bomb killing a child, would be a huge story in the USA, which led to the comments I mentioned above. I hope Lara sees that what happened to her, in a public protest Americans thought was peaceful, perhaps many thinking was like a Tea Party, should be explained. It’s morbid and dark, like the dead US Soldiers Lara wanted to describe, but the need to know is there.

    Dustin (b54cdc)

  12. Dustin

    but i thought that nir guy said she was a warmonger!

    Aaron Worthing (e7d72e)

  13. What would CBS do if it was a celebrity? An American college student? An American politician? Another network’s journalist?

    JD (d4bbf1)

  14. JD

    or anyone at a Tea Party rally being attacked?

    Aaron Worthing (e7d72e)

  15. Not that we’re saying nothing should be reported, but it would have been enough to say she was attacked, they were shouting anti-semitic phrases, and she’s in the hospital recovering.


    I generally agree with you but it really DOES need to be shoved down the throats of everyone just how misogynistic Islam tends to be.

    This is a religious philosophy that is practically 1000 years behind the rest of humanity. It has adherents and supporters who are not, but they do not represent a sufficient proportion of the followers to overpower or reform the religion by itself — it, like everything else, needs a strong show of defiance to make it clear that we ALL — ALL — reject certain forms of behavior, and do so across the board and without hesitation.

    I feel that we are very close to a real tipping point here. Hopefully we will tilt toward more freedom. We can only hope.

    Unfortunately, we have The Obama Nation in charge, who are working fast and furious in their efforts to surpass the Carter Presidency for massive Foreign Policy clusterf***s.

    “We intend to surpass the Carter Admin…
    not just in terms of the quality of our
    clusterf***s, but the quantity as well.”

    – The Big 0 –

    IgotBupkis, President, United Anarchist Society (c9dcd8)

  16. 1) A “car bomb killing a child” is NOT “a huge story in the USA”. Does it get mentioned? Of course it will. It’s multiple deaths in a region where we have troops in-place. Pictures of the aftermath help sell Prilosec and Cialis during the in-betweens. Not the same thing as a “huge story”.

    2) What happened to Lara also is NOT a huge story. Voyeuristic curiosity is not the same thing as a “need to know”.

    Icy Texan (4325bb)

  17. IgotBupkis, President, United Anarchist Society

    I agree with the bigger picture to be shared, but I’m generally against making martyrs for a cause unless they volunteer.

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  18. Icy Texan, if you watch the video (you may have), you’ll see they were saying that if something that is not a big story in Iraq, such as a car bomb killing a kid, happened in the USA, say in Central Texas, it would indeed be a much bigger story.

    In their opinion, Americans were not aware enough of the issue.

    Now, it’s pretty easy to note that Americans were actually extremely well informed about Iraq’s violence. It’s the most well covered war in human history, IMO.

    But if Lara is consistent, we can apply this idea to her sexual assault, which is a common problem, even in public in the capitol, for Egypt, but would be a shocking event at a Tea Party (actually basically impossible, due to Tea Parties being full of normal people who would stop such a thing instantly).

    In both cases, they (and I) are saying that it is very significant that women are raped or assaulted all the time in Egypt, and that Jihadists kill kids all the time in Iraq. It’s no less horrible there than it would be in our safer country, and if journalists do their jobs, we should know all about this.

    Voyeuristic curiosity is not the same thing as a “need to know

    No it isn’t. However, what’s happening in Egypt is of vital interest to Americans. What these protests were like is newsworthy. I don’t know if there was a gang rape or not, or really any details at all aside from the vague brutal beating and sexual nature of some of the attack. It’s newsworthy what exactly was possible in the midst of these people whose faction, the Muslim Brotherhood, could gain great power soon.

    We are in a war against terror, after all.

    There is a way to cover this without being Nancy Grace salacious, but I won’t pretend that’s realistic these days.

    Dustin (b54cdc)

  19. Dustin, you seem to be implying that CBS News might know exactly who committed this crime, as well as their political affiliations/connections; and that, by limiting the release of information they are doing the reverse of responsible journalism — participating, in the name of protecting one of their own, in a cover-up, as opposed to exposing the guilty parties to the light of public scrutiny.

    That all sounds good and reasonable . . . except for the part where you do not know if CBS knows anything of any significance, beyond the so-far undisclosed salacious (to use your chosen term) details of her attack.

    Icy Texan (4325bb)

  20. Good point, Icy.

    And like I said, I don’t mind if it takes a while for Lara to report on this. I hope she does, and I expect she will, but I don’t pretend I can demand anything from her. I’d ask her to consider her principles, as I’ve already described them.

    As for CBS News, I don’t know that they have any idea, and I certainly don’t count on them to report what they know accurately. I expect nothing from CBS.

    Dustin (b54cdc)

  21. Sounds good, Dustin, but I have a sneaking suspicion that there are some people out there that want every salacious detail to be splashed all over the media as a pretext to awaken the pie-in-the-sky crowd to the anti-democracy elements among the protestors. Sensationalism in the name of a good cause.

    The end justifies the means? This ONE story is not going to achieve that aim.

    Icy Texan (4325bb)

  22. OK… I’m guilty as (not directly) charged, Icy. Kinda an ugly truth, but I’ll be honest.

    Dustin (b54cdc)

  23. All of these protests going on simultaneously, it would appear. Reminds me a little of the Fred Thompson character’s line in The Hunt for the Red October – “this thing will get out of control and we’ll all be lucky get out of it with our lives.”

    Dmac (c50897)

  24. The question of whether CBS is obligated to report this in more detail or whether they as a private news outlet, can withhold parts of it and/or detail is interesting.

    Coinciding with that,CNN opted to edit the photo of Lara Logan used in Anderson Cooper’s interview with Nir Rosen.

    The men surrounding her were blurred out. Every other news outlet used the same photo, unedited. As the photo was taken moments before the attack, it’s quite possible those were either participants or perhaps invaluable witnesses.

    CNN would not respond to questions why they opted to edit it until today.

    “We made a network-wide editorial decision to blur the faces of those around Logan because we didn’t know if those in the photograph were involved in the attack or not.”

    Were they wrong to alter the photo?

    Dana (8ba2fb)

  25. CNN is concerned about these Egyptian men being whipped into a frenzy. Who knows what will set them off. We need to keep this celebration going. Do not consider any bumps down the road. The Lora Logan incident is blown out of proportion by people who want to tarnish what would otherwise be a great moment in history.

    Please pay no attention to the small man behind the curtain.

    Arizona Bob (f57a20)

  26. Why would the photo imply they were attackers? That seems like weak evidence at best. And are the faces being blurred because they are attackers or could be mis-identified as attackers?
    Is CNN worried they will be sued?

    They were gutless to alter the photo.

    Arizona Bob (f57a20)

  27. Bob, interestingly, now some will assume the faces were blurred out for some serious secret reason, and, of course, the photos are all over the place unedited. By blurring them, CNN didn’t conceal anything or protect anyone. Rather they just highlighted these guys.

    And since it’s CNN, they probably are as confused about this as we are.

    Dustin (b54cdc)

  28. So Lara was not raped by a Tea Party Activist?

    Torquemada (2a42d3)

  29. Agreeing with Richard Cohen? Most of us would rather flunk a Wasserman Test. But even a blind squirrel (and Cohen is certainly a squirrel of a sort) finds an acorn now and then.

    Mike Myers (0e06a9)

  30. A while back, Nir Rosen apparently described the Taliban this way: ““religious students who kn[ow] little about the rest of the world and care[] only about liberating their country from oppressive warlords.”

    Well, that and brutalizing women back to the stone age while killing Jews. His statement clarifies two things: the non-accidental quality of his comments about rape and predominant attitudes in academic circles regarding *some* people’s human rights.

    Having spent time in academia, I would wager that it was precisely Rosen’s blunt willingness to deploy his expertise to deny and suppress certain human rights abuses that endeared him to his academic sponsors in the first place.

    Such boyo mentality — Maileresque celebration of the “natural” sexual brutality of so-called oppressed men, cheered by their faux brethren like Rosen — is still much in fashion in academic circles (only fraternity brothers may to be condemned, thank you very much).

    So NYU unloads Rosen now. The real question might be why they endorsed him in the first place.

    Tina Trent (7f2406)

  31. Just imagine Rosen a few years in the future with tenure.

    Dustin (b54cdc)

  32. This guy always has the glamour pose with the open shirt.

    I think that’s absolutely hilarious. He probably wears makeup.

    And while he’s right that Afghanistan is dangerous, that’s not informative. His coverage of that war is almost worthless, and pathetic compared to Yon’s.

    Dustin (b54cdc)


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