Chaos or cooperation? The world judges
Following up on my previous post: The international press seems bound and determined to ignore the absence of disorderly conduct during the blackout. Take a look at this list of blackout headlines. Notice how prevalent the word “chaos” is in foreign coverage of the event? It’s not just the BBC — Sky News and Channel ...
Following up on my previous post: The international press seems bound and determined to ignore the absence of disorderly conduct during the blackout. Take a look at this list of blackout headlines. Notice how prevalent the word "chaos" is in foreign coverage of the event? It's not just the BBC -- Sky News and Channel News Asia, , and the Financial Times as well. In fact, if you enter the relevant search terms into Google, you discover the dominance of that word in foreign coverage. When it appears in domestic coverage, it's used only for contrast, as in: "New Yorkers Take Chaos in Stride" "Cooperation prevailed over chaos on darkened city streets." Fascinating. UPDATE: Maybe the divide is confined to print media. James Lileks suggests that American television was equally eager for chaos:
Following up on my previous post: The international press seems bound and determined to ignore the absence of disorderly conduct during the blackout. Take a look at this list of blackout headlines. Notice how prevalent the word “chaos” is in foreign coverage of the event? It’s not just the BBC — Sky News and Channel News Asia, , and the Financial Times as well. In fact, if you enter the relevant search terms into Google, you discover the dominance of that word in foreign coverage. When it appears in domestic coverage, it’s used only for contrast, as in: “New Yorkers Take Chaos in Stride” “Cooperation prevailed over chaos on darkened city streets.” Fascinating. UPDATE: Maybe the divide is confined to print media. James Lileks suggests that American television was equally eager for chaos:
The Fox news guy was outside Penn Station, where thousands of people were – brace yourself – patiently waiting for electricity to return. He seemed a little annoyed that there wasn’t a brawl or a riot…. I almost wondered if the reporters wanted this to be 9/11 lite, all the mass inconvenience with only half the panic. As far as I can tell, the big story was the outage, but the other story was “so, they dealt with it.” You can’t wonder if a TV producer was looking at the feeds, seeing the people just walking along, the cars waiting their turns, and the producer’s thinking: God help me for this, but woudl someone please throw a brick? We’re dyin’ here. (emphasis in original)
Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. Twitter: @dandrezner
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