Bathed in Fire and Blood

The video above shows a riot in Cairo, Egypt. The mass protest by anti-government Egyptians against President Hosni Mubarak and his regime has been plastered in the newspapers and constantly shown in the news. The article which I am writing about is describing a protest in Cairo, Egypt. No doubt as a way to show the human side of the event and therefore elicit sympathy for one side or another. "A few dozen army soldiers fired over the protestors' heads in an attempt to push them back. But pro- and anti-government protestors are well aware that the army has pledged not to use force, rendering the small number of soldiers on the ground ineffectual, reduced at times to trying to wave protesters away" (LaTimes). From that quote alone it looks to be that the article is about the government and specifically the military who are ineffectual only because one man refuses to step down. The article does not tell when the events that it records happened, but one must assumed that they happened within at least the past two days since February 3, 2011 when it was published. 


Link to Article: LA Times: Cairo Protest


Now to the important question of the day, is the above article journalism? I would say no. My reasoning is as follows: it is a good human interest story, but without any references to back the information it provides one cannot really know whether that it is a true story or something made up to get people to read the article. Secondly, you do not know who was interviewed to provide the meat of the story. Thirdly, we do not know whether the reporter was actually there, because the article does not describe any real land marks except the Tahir Square. In all the lack of such evidence lends itself in support of the theory that the article is not truly journalism.


The core biblical truth for the week is Revelation: "In society, truth is not relative to the individual, but rather is absolute and its source is solely God. Tolerance understands other's ideas, but does not require surrender of your world view." The article clearly shows that truth is often twisted to give whatever effect the author is after, whether it is to create sympathy or horror. The author tries to make truth relative, simply because he controls the outlet of truth from where he is stationed. In the end the truth always comes out, no matter how cliche that phrase becomes.