Transatlantic Media

The New York Times reported in an interesting article from Paris June 17 that Barack Obama’s political success in the United States is helping to give hope, and a new sense of identity, to blacks in France. The report erred, however, by referring twice to incidents of vandalism and rioting in France with the clear, but mistaken, implication that they were perpetrated by blacks.

In the first instance, the report mentioned recent vandalism “in a poor minority suburb of Vitry-le-François,” but did not explain that it concerned Arab immigrants. The article later described rioting in a poor French suburb three years ago as a “watershed” in the revival of black consciousness, without specifying who was involved.

At the time, the NYT itself reported:

“Though a majority of the youths committing the acts are Muslim, and of African or North African origin, the mayhem has yet to take on any ideological or religious overtones. Youths in the neighborhoods say second-generation Portuguese immigrants and even some children of native French have taken part.”

“For Blacks in France, Obama’s Rise is Reason to Rejoice, and to Hope” The New York Times, June 17, 2008

An op-ed by Roger Cohen in The New York Times June 9, ‘The Good American and Monsieur Obama,’ also touched on the French love affair with Obama and his rising appeal in African neighborhoods.

This post was written by Reginald Dale, Transatlantic Media Network Director

Some supporters of the European Union’s Lisbon Treaty are making wild, and so far unsubstantiated, allegations that American “neocons” were responsible for the treaty’s defeat in the Irish referendum June 12. France’s Europe Minister Jean-Pierre Jouyet went farthest, stating that “Europe has powerful enemies on the other side of the Atlantic, gifted with considerable financial means,” at a rally in Lyon last weekend. “The role of the American neocons was very important in the victory of the ‘No’,” Jouyet added, without producing any concrete evidence.

‘Europe has ‘powerful enemies’ in US says French Europe minister,‘ EU Observer, June 24, 2008

‘US Neocons Accused of Role in Irish ‘No’ Vote‘ Spiegel Online, June 25, 2008

This post was written by Reginald Dale, Transatlantic Media Network Director

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson visited Norway last week looking for foreign investors, and the local media back home reported his trip as a success. According to the El Paso news station KVIA, Richardson had succeeded in convincing Norway’s largest energy company StatoilHydro to come to New Mexico to explore investment opportunities, apparently in natural gas.

Stories about Richardson in the Norwegian media, however, centered on the U.S. presidential election and reflected Norway’s obsession with Barack Obama. The Norwegian daily Aftenposten quoted Richardson in a headline, “You will like President Obama,” and wrote that if Obama pursues a foreign policy similar to the one Richardson outlined in an address to the Norwegian Nobel Institute, “sweet music will again arise between the U.S. and Europe.” Adresseavisa, another Norwegian daily, expressed a similar sentiment with the headline, “The World will see a different USA,” under an Obama Presidency.

Such effusive coverage is hardly surprising, given Norwegian journalists’ well-known affection for Obama. In an April poll of 500 Norwegian journalists, 51 percent said they would prefer Obama as the next U.S. President, 31 percent preferred Hillary Clinton, and only two percent favored John McCain.

This post was written by Ola Ulmo, Transatlantic Media Network Intern

European media outlets reported extensively when flooding of the Mississippi river caused major damage in the U.S. Midwest last week. Much of the European reporting linked the latest floods to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which received huge amounts of negative media coverage in Europe and was widely used to accuse the Bush administration of insensitivity and incompetence.

Writing for the German news outlet Tagesschau from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, German journalist Anna Engelke reported June 20 that the locals were unimpressed with President Bush’s offer of financial help. With the headline “Bush Visits Flooded Areas: The President Has No Idea,” the article presented a critical view of Bush’s handling of the crisis, suggesting he had not learned the lessons of Katrina. The article’s headline purportedly reflected the sentiments of locals Engelke had interviewed.

In an article on a recently released report by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program, the German daily der Tagesspiegel linked the Mississippi flooding to global warming and claimed that the Bush administration had persistently sought to restrain researchers and the language of reports on climate change until a few years ago. In the United States, the Washington Post’s article on the same report contained no mention of the Bush administration’s resistance to combating climate change.

Not all European coverage, however, reflected badly on Bush. In Britain, for example, the frequently anti-Bush the Guardian reported no negative sentiments toward Bush in articles covering the flooding June 18 and June 20. Although the June 18 article recalled that Bush had been criticized after Hurricane Katrina, it made no mention of similar criticism this time and noted that the President had promised financial aid to affected farmers. June 23 the Guardian carried an Associated Press story which cited local flood victims as saying that this time, “FEMA is doing a heckuva job.” Bush was ridiculed after Hurricane Katrina, when he had said that the head of FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) was doing “a heck of a job” - despite the fact that most people considered FEMA’s response totally inadequate.

This post was written by Ola Ulmo, Transatlantic Media Network Intern

On June 11, Tom Baldwin and Gerard Baker of The Times of London reported on an exclusive interview (‘President Bush regrets his legacy as man who wanted war’) with President George Bush at a U.S.-EU summit meeting in Slovenia, in which Bush expressed regret about what The Times called his “gun-slinging rhetoric” in the build-up to the war in Iraq. His use of phrases such as “bring them on” or “dead or alive,” Bush said, “indicated to people that I was, you know, not a man of peace”. His remarks were heavily covered in media world wide and in the United States.

The New York Times published a somewhat self-satisfied media analysis, saying that Bush had noted his regrets about his tough tone before and the New York Times had known about his concerns for several years. Although the New York Times made a snide reference to “the British paper’s triumphalism about its scoop,” no such “triumphalism” was detectable in the text of The Times’s report on the interview.

A Pew Center report entitled ‘Media Pivot to November, Iraq Debate’ outlined trends in media coverage during the week of May 26-June 1, the period just before Barack Obama clinched the Democratic presidential nomination on June 3. As his victory appeared increasingly inevitable, Obama featured in nearly 66 percent of campaign-related news stories, against 45 percent for his rival Hillary Clinton. At the same time, coverage began to shift toward the general election, with John McCain a significant factor in 36 percent of campaign stories, his highest total since late February.

McCain appeared more frequently after a warning against ‘appeasement’ of terrorism delivered by President Bush in a speech in Israel, which brought McCain and Obama into a direct confrontation over foreign policy. Their arguments focused mainly on Iraq, which accounted for nearly 10 percent of election-related stories.

The Pew report said ‘the tone and tenor of last week’s exchanges between McCain and Obama suggest the war will emerge as a hot topic again in the general election.’ It added:

‘As numerous commentators have noted, Iraq seems to be an issue that both candidates think benefits them. The expectation is that the McCain campaign will use it to depict Obama as inexperienced and naïve about global threats while the Obama campaign will try and inextricably link McCain with an unpopular president, George Bush, prosecuting an unpopular war.’

The trial of five terrorists accused of plotting the 9/11 attacks is making headlines in Europe that are unlike those in the United States. Journalists from Italy, Germany and Britain - along with Canada and Pakistan - were among those present when the trial began at the U.S. Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba on Thursday, June 5.

Perhaps predictably - in view of European hostility to the death penalty in the United States - the possibility of death sentences has been the common denominator of most European reports. “Terror trial in Guantanamo: The Prosecutor demands the Death Penalty” reads the headline of an article in the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. The Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet went a step further and anticipated the verdict with the headline “He Will Be Executed,” referring to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged main planner of 9/11. The Norwegian Aftenposten carried a similar story with the headline “Risking Death Penalty for 9/11 Attacks”. The headline on a report on Sheikh Mohammed’s testimony in the German daily Der Süddeutschen Zeitung was “I Want to Become a Martyr”.

The emphasis is different in the U.S. media. The main article in The New York Times about the trial on June 6 made little mention of the death penalty, referring to it only in the context of a quote from Sheikh Mohammed who “dared the Guantánamo tribunal to put him to death” and a warning from the judge against refusing a lawyer. While mentioning the death penalty in its June 6 article, the Washington Post’s main focus was on the use of torture in the interrogation of the suspects. After Sheikh Mohammed said he wanted martyrdom, some obvious references to the possible death penalty appeared in the U.S. media, such as the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal, but there were no death penalty headlines like those in Europe.

There were some common themes. Both the Washington Post and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung compared the event to the post-World War II Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals, which led to a number of death penalties, prison sentences, and some acquittals.

Some European reporters on the spot found different angles. A BBC correspondent reported that a razor wire fence around the courtroom provided “an unusual setting for an unusual process in which the US military is the jailer, judge and jury of the five detainees being tried.” On the trial’s first day, the BBC correspondent said “It was clear that he [Sheikh Mohammed] was not intimidated by his surroundings or the charges against him - he was enjoying the moment.” The Norwegian daily Dagbladet found it newsworthy that Sheikh Mohammed was unhappy with the courtroom drawings used to illustrate the trial. Its headline read “No, My Nose Is Not That Big.”

This post was written by Ola Ulmo, Transatlantic Media Network Intern

The German newspaper Die Welt published an article with the headline, ‘Mit Bush, verlieren die Deustchen ihr Feindbild’ (‘With Bush, Germans lose their bogeyman’), which argues that Bush’s prestige has deteriorated so much that Germans no longer think him important. According to Die Welt, this explains that lack of planned demonstrations during the German leg of Bush’s current trip to Europe, compared with the large anti-Bush protests of the past.

In Europe, the performing arts are generally funded by public subsidies and most people believe that support of the arts is a government obligation. It is the opposite in the United States. American cultural institutions are primarily funded by individual donors, foundations, and private enterprise.

The New York Times reported this week on differing perceptions of arts funding in Germany and the United States. In particular, the report describes the unusual approach of the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, which has shunned public handouts in favor of more American-style fundraising methods.

‘Courting Donors, Finding Freedom‘ The New York Times, June 4, 2008

The continental European media swelled with excitement as Democratic presidential hopeful, Barack Obama, clinched the nomination. Here are some of the headlines:

‘Elections US - Le message Barack Obama’ - ‘U.S. Elections - the message of Barack Obama’, France-Soir (France)
‘Barack Obama premier Noir à pouvoir être élu président’ – ‘Barack Obama first black with the power to be elected president.’ La Nouvelle République (France)

Barroso salue la victoire d’Obama’ – ‘Barroso salutes Obama’s victory’, Le Figaro (France)

‘Choix Obama: révolution des mentalités’ – ‘The choice of Obama: A revolution in mentalities‘ - a report on the reaction of the leader of Senegal. Le Figaro (France)

‘Obama, candidat historique’ –‘Obama, historic candidate’, Le Figaro

‘Barack Obama, premier Noir à pouvoir briguer la Maison Blanche’ –Barack Obama, first black with the power to seek the White House’, Libération (France)
‘Episch, historisch, einzigartig’ – ‘Epic, Historic, Unique’
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Germany)

‘Oh ja, Obama’ - ‘Oh Yes, Obama’, Der Süddeutschen Zeitung (Germany)

‘Obama: Mehr Softpower’ - ‘Obama: More Soft Power’, Die Zeit (Germany)

‘Lykketoft: Obama kan begejstre’ – ‘[Foreign Minister] Lykketoft: Obama can create excitement’, B.T. (Denmark)

But while Obama’s victory is widely hailed, there remains some skepticism in both the British and the Continental media about Obama’s ability to win the general election and whether an Obama presidency would necessarily improve transatlantic relations:

‘Obama is Europe’s dream candidate, but we may have to settle for McSame’, Timothy Garton Ash, The Guardian (UK)

‘Barack Obama could win a landslide; there’s only one problem – he has to convince the American public of his patriotism.’ The Times (UK)

‘Obama kæmper med fire svage punkter’ - ‘Obama fights against four weak points’, Politiken (Denmark)

‘För Obama väntar svåra utmaningar’ - ‘Difficult challenges await Obama’, Svenska Dagbladet (Sweden)

‘Barack Obama: Enttäuschung programmiert’ - ‘Barack Obama: Programmed Disappointment’, Der Süddeutschen Zeitung (Germany)
Sueddeutche Zeitung says that while Barack Obama creates euphoria in Europe, he will put American interests first if he wins the Presidency

‘Obama, der Erlöser?’ - ‘Obama, the Savior?’, Die Zeit (Germany)
- ‘Obama may come, but the superpower will remain – Obama is not a savior for transatlantic relations’.

Other interesting items in recent European and world U.S. election coverage:

The Guardian (UK) reports the following comment by international media tycoon Rupert Murdoch:

“We’re on the verge of a complete phenomenon. Politicians are at an all-time low and are despised by 80 percent of the public, and then you’ve got a candidate trying to put himself out above it all. He’s become a rock star. It’s fantastic.”

‘Rupert Murdoch heaps praise on Barack Obama’, The Guardian

Most headlines in Europe and the United States have tended to soften their coverage of Hillary Clinton, as she has approached the end of her race. A notable exception is the English language web version of a major Israeli newspaper, Yediot Ahronot, which published an article with the following headline,

“Defeated and pathetic - Hillary’s arrogance, lust for power shames not only her but also women who backed her.”, Yediot Ahronot

Ola Ulmo contributed to this post.