Momcilo Perisic Trial: Al Jazeera vs. Srebrenica Genocide Blog

When one thinks of a blog, arguably a few characteristics come to mind: colloquial, opinionated and emotional. Contrarily, when one thinks of a mainstream news source, a different set of qualities are associated: formal, unbiased and detached.

In light of this, it is interesting to analyze the "Srebrenica Genocide Blog." The blog is an almost database-style account of Serbian war crimes committed during the early 1990's in Yugoslavia. The commentary is implicit (unlike the stereotype of a blog), but glaring.

At the end of 2005, the blog wrote an account of the arrest of Momcilo Perisic, a former Serbian general currently on trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia at the Hague. Rather than celebrating the arrest with passionate words about the horrors committed by Perisic, the blog breaks down the statistics like a score card: "Born," "Indictment," "Charges," "Trial" and a breakdown of the parties involved: Judges, Prosecutors, etc.

The closest the blog comes to condemning Perisic, are the following decidedly-benign statements: "These unlawful attacks caused death of at least seven civilians and at least 194 civilians were wounded" and "Perisic failed to initiate an inquiry into what role members of the 30th Personnel Centre of the VJ General Staff may have played in the commission of these crimes."


On its english website, Al Jazeera News, a mainstream source run out of the Middle East (Doha, Qatar), published a fairly typical news story about Momcilo Perisic's trial. The article appeared recently, on October 2, 2008, and could be considered an addendum to the blog's story. As expected, Al Jazeera's language is straightforward and unbiased. The significance of the story, Al Jazeera explains, is that Perisic's trial is possibly the strongest link that the ICTY has discovered between the late Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic and the crimes committed in Bosnia and Croatia during the war.

Interestingly, though the blog's language is fairly tame, it's positions become clear through the statistics it claims: The Srebrenica massacre resulted "in summary executions of at least 8,372 men, children, and elderly Bosniaks, and UN-assisted ethnic cleansing of approximately 20,000 women." Al Jazeera, on the other hand, states that the Bosnian Serb forces killed "8,000 Muslim men and boys in the UN-protected region of Srebrenica in July 1995." The difference in language is significant, the blog insinuating that there were more deaths than 8,372 and that the United Nations was somehow complicit (a frequent charge.)

Nonetheless, the differences between the two stories are notable because it shows that, while a blog may present itself as a list of facts, it may have an agenda that shapes it in subtle ways. Al Jazeera, on the other hand, could probably not get away with the same claims. This illustrates how blogs, because they are accountable to no one but the author, may take advantage of this freedom.

Troopergate: Anchorage Daily News vs. The Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman blog

Alaska's biggest newspaper, The Anchorage Daily News reported today that Sarah Palin "abused power" in their online article entitled, "Investigator: Palin Abused Power."  The article, from Palin's home state, details her and her husband's use of the Governor's office to "advance a personal agenda, to wit: to get Trooper Michael Wooten fired." The article details with greater specificity Palin's misdeeds, which include the firing of her public safety commissioner, Walt Monegan, for, among other reasons, refusal to fire Wooten and the state attorney general's office failing "to substantially comply" with a request to Palin for e-mails about the case.

The Anchorage Daily article is lengthy and broken down into several sections including, "Trouble Goes Back For Years," which details a 2006 divorce between Wooten and Palin's sister, "Reactions are Divided," which describes the conflicting attitudes toward the scandal ("Who is going to blame Todd Palin for protecting his family?" said Rep. John Coghill, R-North Pole. "Not me.") and "Feedback for Complainants," which spells out the investigator report's advice to the complainants (presumably Palin) and future complainants to trust that the complaints are heeded and taken seriously and to avoid using state power (as Palin has.)

Notably, the article attempts to account for both sides of the conflict: quoting Palin's attorney, who referred to the investigation as a partisan attempt to "smear the governor by innuendo."

The Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman, which serves Palin's city of Wasilla, Alaska features a blog, called Wasila to the White House, on their website. The blog is written by Mat-Su Valley Staff writers and focus on Palin's ascendancy from Mayor of Wasila to Republican Vice Presidential Candidate. The blog's entry for Friday, October 10th, is titled "Troopergate report was in high demand." The brief article simply describes the press' excitement with the Investigation findings. It also details another story, written in the first person, which seems to criticize Sarah Palin for her secrecy with regard to sending emails about state business through a private Yahoo account.

I think this Wasilla-based blog indicates that blogs can be as equally unbiased as a mainstream news source. Still, the Frontiersman blog uses more informal expressions such as "The so-called Palin Truth Squad." This does not make it more subjective, but I think that a lack of formality runs a higher risk of losing credibility.

Sources:
http://www.adn.com/troopergate/story/552799.html
http://www.frontiersman.com/articles/2008/10/11/blogs/palin/doc48efdfb649096953197588.txt

Starbucks Wastes Water: The Guardian vs. The Creative Brainwaves of Anneka Tran

On Monday October 6th, it was reported by many mainstream news sources that Starbucks had wasted large amounts of water.

The left-leaning British Newspaper, The Guardian, published the story "Starbucks Wastes Millions of Litres of Water A Day" on their website, theguardian.co.uk.  The Guardian explains that this is the result of a practice of keeping water running during it's "dipper" method of cleaning.   The Guardian includes extraneous (though not unimportant) facts such as: "A single Starbucks tap left running for just over three minutes wastes the amount of water one African needs to survive for a day in drought conditions."

The Guardian's article is a bit more critical than one might expect from a mainstream news source.  Though it never explicitly states an opinion (as a blog might), all of the quotes are from "astonished" citizens, who are outraged at the "supposedly-green" Starbucks organization.  Furthermore, they cite Starbucks' controversial 2006 bid to stop Ethiopian farmers from copyrighting their coffee beans (the though article does explain that a more fair deal was reached.)

Although The Guardian explains briefly that Starbucks will amend it's water use and cleaning practices, the overall tilt of the article seems to be very critical of the coffee giant.  In addition to the Africa quote above, they write: "In the UK, Starbucks has 698 branches, each open for 13 hours a day. Even a slow tap flows three litres of water a minute, meaning Starbucks in the UK is wasting an estimated 1.63m litres a day – enough to supply Matlock village in Derbyshire." This information is not presented as a quote, but simply as fact and may be considered an unnecessary, if dubious, admission. 

In "Starbucks Wasting Water," a blog called The Creative Brainwaves, writes: "Today I was very surprised to read that Starbucks wastes over 23.4m litres of water a day, therefore prompting me to make a quick illustration about it too."

 

The first person account immediately indicates it's biased and less-professional nature.   There is no other text except a link to the Guardian article.  

The drawing that follows (above) is a fairly straightforward political cartoon that shows a Starbucks cup pouring out large drops of water with dollar signs on them.  The obvious interpretation is that Starbucks is wasting money by wasting water.  Whether or not the drawing implies that Starbucks is losing money because of the bad press it will receive in the wake of this story, is unclear.

It is interesting to note that The Guardian's story will likely elicit a more critical reaction to Starbucks than the blog's cartoon.  Perhaps this is due to the very simple nature of the cartoon, but I was surprised to note the harsh criticism of Starbucks indicated in the Guardian article.