This morning in a conversation with my wife I said that the Associated Press was the American version of Al Jezeera. A moments reflection led me to take it back. "That," I said, "was unfair to Al Jezeera." In fact the American Press coverage of the election has been reasonably good, a few quirks of the New York Times notwithstanding. But the Arab Press has been remarkable. Consider Hassan M. Fattah's piece for NYT.
After nearly two years of providing up-to-the-minute images of explosions and mayhem, and despite months of predictions of a blood bath on election day, some news directors said they found the decision surprisingly easy to make. The violence simply was not the story on Sunday morning; the voting was.
That, as Frank Zappa was wont to say, is the crux of the biscuit.
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