Egypt

If you don’t have this stream running, you’re not aware.  Al Jazeera’s coverage is a reproach to the Western media, at least as much of it as I’ve looked at.

Author: Michael O'Hare

Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley, Michael O'Hare was raised in New York City and trained at Harvard as an architect and structural engineer. Diverted from an honest career designing buildings by the offer of a job in which he could think about anything he wanted to and spend his time with very smart and curious young people, he fell among economists and such like, and continues to benefit from their generosity with on-the-job social science training. He has followed the process and principles of design into "nonphysical environments" such as production processes in organizations, regulation, and information management and published a variety of research in environmental policy, government policy towards the arts, and management, with special interests in energy, facility siting, information and perceptions in public choice and work environments, and policy design. His current research is focused on transportation biofuels and their effects on global land use, food security, and international trade; regulatory policy in the face of scientific uncertainty; and, after a three-decade hiatus, on NIMBY conflicts afflicting high speed rail right-of-way and nuclear waste disposal sites. He is also a regular writer on pedagogy, especially teaching in professional education, and co-edited the "Curriculum and Case Notes" section of the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. Between faculty appointments at the MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning and the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, he was director of policy analysis at the Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs. He has had visiting appointments at Università Bocconi in Milan and the National University of Singapore and teaches regularly in the Goldman School's executive (mid-career) programs. At GSPP, O'Hare has taught a studio course in Program and Policy Design, Arts and Cultural Policy, Public Management, the pedagogy course for graduate student instructors, Quantitative Methods, Environmental Policy, and the introduction to public policy for its undergraduate minor, which he supervises. Generally, he considers himself the school's resident expert in any subject in which there is no such thing as real expertise (a recent project concerned the governance and design of California county fairs), but is secure in the distinction of being the only faculty member with a metal lathe in his basement and a 4×5 Ebony view camera. At the moment, he would rather be making something with his hands than writing this blurb.

6 thoughts on “Egypt”

  1. Well Al Jazeera's coverage is also a shining example of journalism at its best. Thorough, daring (Mubarak tried to stop them) fair and balanced. I haven't heard any praise of Mubarak but I did hear Mubarak and some guy with an Australian accent advising people to stay home tonight for their own safety even if Mubarak told them to do so and extensive coverage of looting (even rumors of looting).

    I don't doubt that most Al Jazeera staff are pleased by the events — they didn't go to work for al Jazeera to shore up Arab dictators — but they are reporting it straight.

  2. Agree and have had it running and generally only listening – there was a lull during the Egyptian night, and a segment on Japanese marriages and resulting name changes ran numerous times throughout.

    The live interviews and immediate cut-aways for instance to President Obama's statement all seem to move smoothly.

  3. Well, other than the problem – which is scarcely unique to Al-Jazeera – of having, at times, more commentators and commentary than events to comment on, Al-J's coverage of the Egyptian uprising has been pretty thorough. Which isn't to be wondered at since they are headquartered there: I think the US media were pretty belated getting around to covering Egypt: but I also think that's just a function of their being American; i.e. stuff that happens here is, virtually by definition, "more real" than what goes on in weird foreign countries speaking weird foreign languages.

  4. There is also the fact that the American media have systematically dismantled their foreign desks. It reached the point years ago that the BBC had much better coverage than American newspapers, networks and wire services had. But now the BBC is cutting its foreign services.

    I don't know where we go from here.

  5. I agree that Al-Jazeera is unrivaled, but good job making yourself sound like an elitist you-know-what.

Comments are closed.