Neutrality disputed

People have been trying to convince me of this argument for years, but it was not until I read Het zijn net mensen (They are just like people) by Joris Luyendijk that I changed my position on the perceived neutrality of quality news outlets like BBC News.

How naive it may sound, I did entertain the notion that at least a few Western news agencies did make an honest effort to tell the story objectively. And probably, that is not entirely false, but what Luyendijk (who is an ex-correspondent for the Middle-East) does illustrate successfully is the sheer inability to cover news objectively by default in hot spots like Jerusalem.

The truth in such places is wrapped in so many layers of spin it is nye impossible to extract it. If, against all odds, a journalist does manage to get to the core of the issue, it turns out to be so mindbogglingly complex, that it can't be fit into a news clip of 45 seconds dealing with the latest terrorist attack. Thus, unless we actively search for it, we never get the full picture.

Given Luyendijk's detailed inside view into our lacking means of reporting news, I guess I have to reset my opinion on most of the issues dominating the media to the honest, but utterly irrelevant,"I don't know".