TV: Five shows worth watching tonight Sunday was one of those days when one struggled to grasp meaning from the madness. Sunday morning, I watched Fox News Sunday. Always a bracing experience, watching the Fox News’s spin on events. The big deal was a chat with Wisconsin governor Scott Walker. The Governor is trying to reverse about a century of labour rights in his state by removing the right to collective bargaining, and about 70,000 people had turned out in Madison, Wis., on Saturday to voice their opinions on this, most of them state employees and most against the Governor’s plan. Some had been protesting for days and were camped out in the state legislature. Democratic members of the legislature there had fled the state, to stop any vote on the plan.
The Fox host, Chris Wallace, took the view that Walker was taking a tough stand. He allowed Walker to talk on and on. Things I learned: Walker’s brother is a catering manager at a Madison hotel, his brother’s wife works at Sears, and he and his wife have “two beautiful daughters.” Things that occurred to me: There is probably some symbiotic relationship between the mass protests in Wisconsin and the mass protests in the Arab world. At the very least, people in Wisconsin were emboldened by events in Egypt, surely? Also Scott Walker is doing the “strongman leader” thing, which isn’t actually going over well in some parts of the world right now. Further, that apart from Fox News, events in Madison, which clearly make for great TV images, had been too little covered by the U.S. news channels.
Later, after watching Barcelona play Athletic Bilbao on GOL TV, the first thing that occurred to me was: Watching Barcelona play is one of life’s great pleasures. The orchestral manoeuvres, the balletic grace. It’s a Sunday afternoon in Canada, and I’m watching live soccer from Spain. Thank heavens for television. And I hope every young soccer player who can watch is emboldened by watching Barcelona.
Then I turned to the Al Jazeera channel. This is Al Jazeera’s hour. As its part of the world erupts, the coverage is continually compelling. Sunday, the channel was monitoring events in Libya. It was utter confusion. A man from Benghazi was on the phone and on the air. He said he’d heard that Moammar Gadhafi had fled to Venezuela and other members of Gadhafi’s family had fled to Europe. This was unconfirmed, as the Al Jazeera anchor pointed out.
Next thing, up pops Gadhafi’s son, Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, giving a speech on Libyan State Television. It was an extraordinary performance, by our standards, anyway. Obviously having no text to read, he rambled for 30 minutes, wagging his finger, waving his arms and glaring. It was the middle of the night in Tripoli, about 1 a.m., and the man seemed demented – threats and promises all mixed up with bizarre accusations. The army made mistakes. Tanks were driven by people on drugs. Libya would descend into multiple states. It would be like living in North and South Korea. Change was possible – more money for workers, a new national anthem perhaps. Tomorrow, a new Libya. On the other hand, no surrender to the opposition. Outside forces were manipulating events and that’s a shocking development.
Right. Over on CNN, a guy at the news desk introduced a university expert on Libya who said the speech was “insulting.” Later on CNN, there was an interview with a member of the family of King Idris, who had ruled Libya until Gadhafi’s coup overthrew the monarchy in 1969. The CNN anchor called the guy, “Your Highness,” which sounded weird. The Highness praised the people of Libya, “especially the women.” It occurred to me that the Highness, unused to TV appearances, looked exceedingly smug.
By the time The National aired on CBC on Sunday, thee wasn’t much more to report from Libya, but Wendy Mesley narrowed her eyes and looked way-serious anyway. An exhausted-looking Nahlah Ayed did some punditry from London. One understood the exhaustion. All that turmoil. Nobody ever thought that the Libyan regime might fall and now it looked to be teetering. No mention of events in Wisconsin, though. It occurred to me that although CBC couldn’t get reporters into Libya – nobody could – it could get excellent reports from Wisconsin, if it tried.
Over on Al Jazeera again, there was a roundup of events across the world, as the world is seen by the channel. Libya. Tunisia. Egypt. Bahrain. Morocco. Yemen. Then Uganda. And then, Wisconsin. Somebody at Al Jazeera obviously figured that, as the news agenda was all about turmoil, public demonstrations and people power, events in Wisconsin might as well be included.
The channel briefly and simply gave a snapshot of the mass protests and the political showdown. It was left to the viewer to extrapolate more. What to extrapolate? The meaning of events in Wisconsin will probably have a more profound effect on people in the United States and Canada than events in the Arab world. It deserves better coverage on TV. And instability is everywhere, thanks to TV images.
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