Biases of the American Press

An excellent article ! The one flaw to me is that it is another article with Pakistan measured in relation to India rather than Pakistan on its own merits.

As a regular reader of the New York Times myself, I would like to point out that actually coverage of India (or Pakistan ) is quite scanty.

For instance, go to www.nytimes.com and search for articles that mention India, Pakistan, etc. during the past year, and get counts like :

India :1478

Pakistan:506

Kashmir:145

In contrast, Germany had 3084 mentions, China had 3408, Taiwan had 655, North Korea had 764, Singapore had 387. Kosovo had 809.

Most Americans get their news from television. Going to abcnews.com and using the search on their home page, the counts are India - 1778, Pakistan - 1153, Kashmir - 277, Germany - 3556, China - 4759, Taiwan - 953, North Korea - 672, Singapore - 663, Kosovo - 2521.

So, the first thing I would note is that India gets relatively little attention considering its size; and likewise for Pakistan.

The next thing to note is that it is big business and big labor (unions) that exert themselves over US foreign policy. Apart from this, the average American gets concerned only when Americans are sent overseas for combat duty. This is especially true after the end of the Cold War.

So perhaps the news coverage affects foreign policy; but it seems more likely that the foreign policy experts and business and labor influence news coverage. That is, wages and working conditions in a foreign country become of interest to a newspaper because an American factory is moving overseas, and not because of some crusader in the media who wants to bring some injustice into the American public eye.

To sum up, here be potential war, here be potential business, these are the two things that govern the meagre coverage given the third world in the American media. Genuine curiosity or concern is scarce.

India gets mentioned on both counts of war and business. Pakistan in its current state is mentioned only because of the former. I hope that lays to rest any illusions anyone has of the tails of South Asia wagging the dog of American media.

-Arun Gupta

Re: spout

``I stopped reading the NY Times..``

Is it because they use really big words?

``Imagine all those bearded Rabbis tearing down the NY Times doors``

Hah, I think you`re confusing bearded Rabis for bearded Mullahs who are far more likely to tear anything down. Jews made New York and Wall Street! Everyone knows that and respects them. Pakistan`s claim to fame in New York is Yousef Ramzi blowing up the World Trade Center.

As for CNN, weren`t you complaining about it the last time this issue came up? Now it`s reliable again? What a joke.

Why is it so important to the author how we are viewed by the western press while the problems themselves are only mentioned in passing? Is the fact that CBS had a documentary on the subject even remotely comparable in importance to the fact that we do have armed lashkars roaming the country that threaten to turn the country into another Somalia? I think we should thank the CBS for highlighting this problem rather than whining about unequal criticism and conspiracies. But the only issue the author (like so many other Pakistanis commentators) seems to have is of our image in the west, while being blissfully unconcerned with the problems themselves.

The following joke summarizes the American newspaper scene.

NEWSPAPERS

1. The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.

2. The New York Times is read by people who think

they run the country.

3. The Washington Post is read by people who think

they ought to run the country.

4. USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country but don`t understand the Washington Post.

5. The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn`t mind running the country, if they could spare the time.

6. The Boston Globe is read by people whose

parents used to run the country.

7. The New York Daily News is read by people who

aren`t too sure who`s running the country.

8. The New York Post is read by people who don`t care who`s running the country, as long as they do something scandalous.

9. The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren`t sure there is a country, or that anyone is running it.

10. The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country.

Good, thought provoking article Omar.

I stopped reading the NY Times when it published a hate-monging AD sponsored by some extremist Indian group against Pakistan and Pakistanis. I believe I can find better news sources (Wall Street Journal, CNN, our own desi newspapers).

But I also believe Anamika has a point when she says that newspapers have to make money and please the public they are circulated in. NY City and it`s vicinity is teeming with Jews, why would the NY Times publish something anti-Israeli. Imagine all those bearded Rabbis tearing down the NY Times doors, demanding an explanation. In the same vein, they choose to publish negative articles about Pakistan since it is pro-Palestinian. It`s all a political game.

Americans are not dumb people either, unless they are brainwashed or just plain racist. They understand the hypocricies and politics of newspapers.

I had the pleasure of meeting NY senator Chuck Schumer at an Pakistani Eid Dinner, and in his speech, he expressed his concerns about the negative portrayal of Pakistan in the US as well as the issues faced by Kashmiris.

As far as US`s love for India lately, I personally don`t think the US gives a rat`s as * about Pakistan or India. As far as India is concerned, what more could the US want than a bunch of coconut oil dripping humble hardworkers getting down and dirty for the benefit of the United States of America. Now that`s the way to run a country. Extract the best from other countries to build your own.

And Indians think they are being loved for being ``oh so very democratic and secular.``

Yeah Right!

Mirza pyare,

A very good and well researched piece written with all the innocence and naivete of a round eyed schoolboy. Rather refreshing amidst all the cynicism.

``Why`` indeed ``why don`t they condemn the indians``

They wont because they need to use us...whether as a counterweight to PRC or a dumping ground for their obsolete technology or a marketor whatever.

The world is a harsh and hard place, there are no

Marquis of Queensbury rules here. I thought this was common knowledge by now.

bakait

Democracy might seem to be what will make the US attitude towards Pakistan change but then we have the examples of Algeria, Egypt etc. countries where US has supported non-democratic Governments. Even in Pakistan during Zia`s and Ayub`s regimes Pakistan was a US `ally`.

West always looks forward to safeguard its interests. That is perfectly understandable but it might not be acceptable since their changing policies create havoc with the developing economies - like that of Pakistan. All of us know what interests the West is looking out for. Lets see how the US would behave if Russia were to come into Afghanistan again, I am sure all the problems with the Pakistani domestic structure would be accepted as `a part of any developing country`s environment`, massive amount of aid would again roll in, and Pakistan would star in another Bond movie as a safe haven for the free world!

All Pakis should read the following news item from Washington Times. Looks like Tehelka expose has done a lot of good to India by showing the world resilence of Indian democracy. Some excerpts are as follows.

http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20010402-394893.htm

``First things first. India is the ``good`` rising superpower. For more than 50 years, India has been a vibrant democracy. Just ask former Defense Minister George Fernandez, who recently resigned his portfolio because his underlings were caught taking bribes. Indians will be the first to admit their democracy is ponderous. But which one isn´t? And it is the law that ultimately prevails in India.

China is the ``bad`` rising superpower. For more than 50 years, China has been ruled by the men who lead its Communist Party. Real democracy is forbidden and any other seemingly organized opposition is brutally crushed. Nor do the ruling communists seem to tolerate other Chinese democracies. Just ask Taiwan, or even Hong Kong´s increasingly stifled democrats.

``

``It is time for the U.S. to break this pattern and seek strategic cooperative ties with India that demonstrate a U.S. recognition that India´s emergence as a future democratic superpower can benefit American security. For starters, the new Bush team would do well to state that the U.S. and India have an interest in preventing China´s nuclear and missile proliferation and its quest to be a regional hegemon. Washington should also end nuclear-related sanctions that prevent the resumption of a defense dialogue, that at a minimum, should take up where the previous Bush administration left off.

Ultimately, both the U.S. and India would benefit from helping forces in China that would move it toward democracy. For each the levers to do so are few, but one stands out: By helping a billion Indians develop a democratic superpower in this century the U.S. can help prove to a billion Chinese that they can have prosperity together with the freedom they now lack.

``

Mohajir:

This is the reason why US-India relations are imroving.

Getting India right

http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20010402-394893.htm

Richard D. Fisher Jr.

America is entering a geopolitical moment: It now has the opportunity to forge a beneficial relationship with arising ``good`` superpower in a manner that provides a strong but positive balance to the rising ``bad`` superpower.

First things first. India is the ``good`` rising superpower. For more than 50 years, India has been a vibrant democracy. Just ask former Defense Minister George Fernandez, who recently resigned his portfolio because his underlings were caught taking bribes. Indians will be the first to admit their democracy is ponderous. But which one isn´t? And it is the law that ultimately prevails in India.

China is the ``bad`` rising superpower. For more than 50 years, China has been ruled by the men who lead its Communist Party. Real democracy is forbidden and any other seemingly organized opposition is brutally crushed. Nor do the ruling communists seem to tolerate other Chinese democracies. Just ask Taiwan, or even Hong Kong´s increasingly stifled democrats.

Both India and China are developing nations that have sectors of technological brilliance that contrast with areas of stark underdevelopment. The challenge for both is how to best throw off the shackles of socialism, which restrict opportunity and impede economic growth. Today foreign money bets on China, but the long-term edge may be with India. In India, successful entrepreneurs benefit from a legal system and are more likely to keep their rewards. In China, entrepreneurs must navigate a maze of corruption, and they can lose it all, and their lives, if they run afoul of the party.

Both India and China are now building nuclear missiles. One can question whether India started its nuclear missile race with Pakistan, but it now clearly behind, and cannot begin to match China´s arsenal. China´s expanding missile forces are pointed at its democratic neighbors Taiwan in particular. China sold Pakistan the means to build nuclear weapons and its new Shaheen solid-fueled missiles. At the same time, China is leading a global propaganda barrage against American missile defense plans. Some serious Indian defense experts suggest that cooperating with the U.S. in missile defense would benefit Indian security.

India and China are also competitors for future influence in South and East Asia. China wants to become the region´s hegemon. So far, it is China that arms the states on India´s borders, not the other way around. Though successive U.S. administrations say they will prevent the rise of such a hegemon, Asians are hedging their bets. Asian states from Singapore to Japan are quietly looking for ways to increase their strategic cooperation with India.

So should Washington, if it wants to continue its positive influence in the same region. Unfortunately, India and the United States have been at cross-purposes for most of the last 50 years, be it the Cold War divide, North vs. South politics, and socialism vs. capitalism. So lacking in overarching mutual interests, U.S. relations with the world´s largest democracy have been driven by a train of important but secondary issues: conflict with Pakistan; conflict over Kashmir; and India´s nuclear program.

Former Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr. tried to break out of this pattern by initiating a defense dialogue with India that was no doubt helped by the collapse of the Soviet Union. By the end of the Bush administration, the U.S. was even selling defense technology to India, like advanced engines for its Light Combat Aircraft program.

But this good beginning was cut down as the new Clinton administration sought to meddle in the Kashmir dispute. Any hope for improved defense ties were blown away by U.S. sanctions imposed following India´s 1998 nuclear tests. Most galling to Indians was the Clinton administration´s willingness to echo Chinese demands that India abandon its nuclear program while doing nothing to stop China´s nuclear traffic with Pakistan. It was simply shameful that CIA Director George Tenet could not publicly state that China was responsible for the sale of technology that enabled Pakistan´s new sold-fuel missiles until after Bill Clinton left town. Today more than 150 Indian entities are under U.S. nuclear-related sanction compared to less than a handful of Chinese entities.

It is time for the U.S. to break this pattern and seek strategic cooperative ties with India that demonstrate a U.S. recognition that India´s emergence as a future democratic superpower can benefit American security. For starters, the new Bush team would do well to state that the U.S. and India have an interest in preventing China´s nuclear and missile proliferation and its quest to be a regional hegemon. Washington should also end nuclear-related sanctions that prevent the resumption of a defense dialogue, that at a minimum, should take up where the previous Bush administration left off.

Ultimately, both the U.S. and India would benefit from helping forces in China that would move it toward democracy. For each the levers to do so are few, but one stands out: By helping a billion Indians develop a democratic superpower in this century the U.S. can help prove to a billion Chinese that they can have prosperity together with the freedom they now lack.



Richard D. Fisher Jr. is a senior fellow with the Jamestown Foundation.

Bill Clinton played a major role in improving India-US relations. Indian community also plays a important role. He wrote this article on his second visit to India starting tomorrow April 3 in aid of Gujarat earthquake victims.

Clinton`s India Yatra

Partners in spirit, partners in fact

By William Jefferson Clinton

Over the past eight years, I had the privilege of traveling to nearly 100 nations around the world on behalf of the United States of America. There are few trips that meant as much to me than the journey I took last year to India. This week, I will return to India.

When you think about how you`d like the world to look in 20 years - in Africa, in Asia, in Latin America, even in the Middle East - it`s hard to imagine how we could build the future we want without a partnership between the world`s two greatest democracies. After all, India and America are natural allies, each conceived in liberty, each finding strength in diversity, each seeing in the other a reflection of its own aspirations for a more humane and just world. But even though our democratic ideals gave us a common starting point, and our dreams of peace and prosperity gave us a common destination, for too long there was too little common ground between us.

I came to India last year with the hope that my visit would help the American people to see a new India and to better understand this proud nation that has given so many gifts to the world. In turn, I hoped that my visit would help India to better understand America. I believed that listening to one another, we could lay the foundation for a true partnership between our two nations based on mutual respect and common endeavour. I was heartened to see that following that many Indians now believe that a new day has dawned between us.

Of all the displays of grace that I saw on that trip last year, none compare to the overwhelming response of the Indian people to the victims and families of the devastating earthquake in Gujarat. Over the past two months, the tireless efforts of all those involved in the relief effort have proven that the worst natural disaster in Independent India`s history has brought out the best in its people.

But as news of the tragedy fades from world headlines, the urgency of the work still to be done must not. That is why I am returning to India -- to tour the affected areas, to meet with families and relief agencies, and to bring new attention to the challenge of reconstruction that remains.

As India knows all too well, there is much to be done. The numbers alone numb the senses -- more than 20,000 dead, 1.7 million injured, one million homeless. More than 1,200 schools were destroyed. More than one million homes must be repaired or rebuilt. For all the work that has been completed, damage estimates still reach above 350 billion rupees. And there is no way of accounting for livelihoods lost and lives disrupted.

Nothing can erase the devastating loss of the earthquake. Perhaps the best way to honor those who were lost in this terrible tragedy is work with the survivors to create a better future.

One positive development over the past two months is that the tragedy in Gujarat has given impetus to the creation of a new organization in America called the American India Foundation. This is a group of distinguished Indian-Americans who have contributed a great deal to our country, and who want to deepen their engagement with India to help India realise its vision for the 21st Century. This week, more than 20 distinguished members of this Foundation will tour Gujarat with me.

We hope to work with the people of this region to achieve their vision of a new Gujarat -- to work with government agencies, non-governmental organizations (NGO`s), and concerned Indians not just to build Gujarat back, but to build it better. In the short term, we hope to work with local officials in any way they need us to provide relief to meet basic needs and help Gujarat get back on its feet, be it rebuilding schools and providing teachers; repairing hospitals and providing doctors; or empowering people to reopen businesses by making credit available.

In the long-term, we want to be a resource to the people of Gujarat as they work toward their dream of bringing this region and its people into the 21st Century: by wiring schools for the Internet and other tools of the new economy; by bringing the next life-saving devices into hospitals and health centers; by using new technology to help local craftsmen market their products across India and across the world; by including local villagers in the planning process to avoid the well-intentioned but widely acknowledged mistakes of Latur and construct new buildings designed not only to withstand future earthquakes, but to meet the needs of local citizens. For centuries, the vision of the Indian people helped change the world. That same vision is at work in villages across the region today, and we will be honored to be a part of it.

While we pray that no future disasters will visit India, we know that nature has not been so kind. As many in Parliament have expressed, we share the hope that our common efforts to rebuild Gujarat will serve as a model for future efforts, particularly as Parliament works toward establishing a federal emergency management agency for India. This is intended to help the people of India endure everything from tornadoes to floods to hurricanes and emerge, in the end, even stronger.

All of this work will not be completed quickly. But the partnership I spoke of last year between the people of the United States and the people of India is not subject to time limits or deadlines. This is how partners in spirit become partners in fact. I pledge to do all I can to help make that goal a reality.

(Former US President Bill Clinton wrote this article exclusively for The Times of India.)

Rsaxena # 7

``Bechaara Pakistan...no one likes it anymore :( ``

roses are red

violets are blue

Rsaxena is an icky old roach in my loo

he reeks of petroleum,

regurgitated boiled rice,

of droppings of pigeons

and farts shot by mice

of hydrogen sulphide and

remnants of the flu

phlegm coughed by millions

of retards that he knew

of gullets of buffalo

of crap soaked in cream

defacation dump opened

Kirk`s half only beamed

blood spurts from incisions

and flesh thus exposed

failed circumcissions:

the organs disposed

of briefs during papers

of socks shed by mouts

of breath in the mornings

and the pellets of goats

You, my dear man are annoying me.

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[...The question is why is Pakistan, and not India ``America`s Worst Nightmare?``...]

the day india starts an assembly line producing robots chanting `death to america`, and starts naming its babies `osama`, and starts sending soldiers of islam all over the world to wage a jehad against the enemies of islam, would be the day india would become america`s worst nightmare.

till then, pakistan would keep the trophy.

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A really good article and its been long time since such an objective analysis has been done. I still Think that we should start changing and thinking

about ourself instead of thinking what jew-hindu

communities are doing against us. If we are a

functioning democracy with all these abnoxious

mullahs cronered and left to have their pleasures

in the confines of their Hujjras we might

win a bit of respect in the world. There is an urgent need for us to understand our position

and our responsibilities in the changing world.

This is a fact that WHAT WORKED IN PAST MAY NOT

WORK TODAY so instead of putting in place a system that worked miricles 1400 years ago lets think of

the ways to have a system that can do miricles again for us.

Have fun.

Yale University is holding a Conference on Pakistan India relations to which I have been invited and will be attending....

BORDERING ON PEACE: A CONFERENCE ON INDIA-PAKISTAN RELATIONS

April 6-7, 2001

Linsley-Chittenden Hall(LC), Room 102

At Yale University

New Haven, Connecticut

Keynote Speeches:

Zamir Akram- Deputy Chief of Mission, Pakistan Embassy in Washington,DC

Shashi U. Tripathi- Consul General of India in New York

Panel A: The Economics of South Asia: An Instrument of Cooperation?

-Imran Anwar, CEO, EverTrac, Inc., Founder of the first Internet Service

Provider in Pakistan

-Shahid Javed Burki, Former Vice President of the World Bank, CEO of EMP

Financial Advisors

-Rahul Tongia, Research Fellow, Department of Engineering and Public

Policy at Carnegie Mellon University

Schedule for Friday, April 6:

6.00 PM : Keynote Speech - Shashi U. Tripashi

6.30 PM : The Economics of South Asia: An Instrument of Cooperation?

Schedule for Saturday, April 7:

11.30 AM : The Security Situation in South Asia

1.00 PM : Lunch Reception with Panelists

2.30 PM : Keynote Speech- Zamir Akram

3.00 PM : Cultural and Historical Perspectives

4.30 PM : Closing Comments

In addition to the panels, there will be a Student Discussion Session

and a Declaration Session on Saturday. Please email

sanjit.konda@yale.edu for detailed information or visit the ICRG webpage

at http://www.yale.edu/icrg

The conference is free and open to the public.

For more information about ICRG, practical information about attending ``Bordering on Peace`` (including directions), please visit our webpage:

http://www.yale.edu/icrg

You can also e-mail engin.yenidunya@yale.edu or

dipali.mukhopadhyay@yale.edu, call Engin at (203)436-1289 or Dipali at

(203)436-0872.

Hope to see you all there :)

YLH