“Al-Jazeera,” Miles concludes, “is probably less biased than any of the mainstream American news networks.” All to his...
From an award-winning young journalist, a revealing account of the rise of the network the Bush administration, Fox News, and London tabloids love to hate.
And why not? The virulently right-wing, pro-American Fox News, writes English media critic and business consultant Miles, isn’t aired in the UK because it violates that nation’s strictures on “due impartiality,” whereas Al-Jazeera is by comparison a model of restraint and balance. And if American viewers find Al-Jazeera biased, it is largely because “the popular American media has not reported particularly comprehensively about foreign affairs for years,” such that the messenger who brings the news that the Arab street is full of hatred for America will be the one to be shot. Miles describes the birth of Al-Jazeera only a decade ago as the voice of a newly democratic—and newly fabulously very, very rich—Qatar; the network’s name means “the peninsula,” as Qatar is. Soon after, the reformist emir abolished the Ministry of Information, and Al-Jazeera was suddenly free to report as it saw fit. Which it has done with careful balance (its slogan is “The opinion and the other opinion”). Which is precisely what has outraged the Bush administration and its handful of allies, Miles notes: By giving Osama bin Laden a voice, Al-Jazeera put itself on the side of the enemy, though, Miles adds, the network’s Washington bureau chief observed that bin Laden’s sending videotapes to Qatar was much the same as the Unabomber’s sending faxes to the New York Times. But Al-Jazeera is used to such controversies, Miles comments: in recent years, the Palestinian Authority has denounced Al-Jazeera as a Zionist tool after the network exposed its corrupt leadership, even as Israel denounced Al-Jazeera for being a PLO front and American soldiers busied themselves shooting at Al-Jazeera correspondents in Iraq for their crime of having aired images of atrocities and burning cities.
“Al-Jazeera,” Miles concludes, “is probably less biased than any of the mainstream American news networks.” All to his credit, he makes a strong case.Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2005
ISBN: 0-8021-1789-9
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2004
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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