Eyes open

Between the end of World War II and the end of the Cold War, Americans got most of their information about the rest of the world via a handful of macro media sources--dominated by Walter Cronkite, Time magazine, and the Seven Sisters movie studios--and the micro personal experiences of servicemen returning from wars abroad.

And that was pretty much it. Which meant that while on the one hand people didn't know nearly a fraction about the rest of the world that we did today, on the other hand what Americans did know was really known.

The day in 1968 when Walter Cronkite, reporting on his recent trip to Vietnam, said the war was likely to end in a stalemate, prompted LBJ to famously say 'If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost America.'

It's a statement that was both figuratively and literally true--not just because Cronkite was influential in a way no journalist today will ever be, but because for lack of options everyone watched and trusted his newscast, so whatever conclusions he drew and communicated instantly became the gospel of the land. Not just because he was a great journalist who reported his findings honestly; but also because there wasn't much static--his voice was pretty much the only thing out there that night.

There are some virtues to this closed system, just as there are some virtues to a benevolent dictatorship when compared with messy democracy. Things are so much more efficient; and if the absolute ruler is or becomes enlightened--as some would say famously occurred with Constantine's conversion to Christianity--the 'good' that can result is just as swift and lasting as the bad that despots like Hitler and Stalin imprinted on history.

It is, of course, a classic debate--is it better to have change, even if it for the better, to be 'artificially' imposed upon a society; or is meaningful change on any sufficiently divisive and thus important issue only the result of societal evolution. We face it in this country all the time; if we go by the quintessential recent example of the civil rights struggle, very few people would argue they'd rather the famously liberal Warren court have taken its time desegregating schools and buses and lunch counters, waiting for the mood of the South to more 'naturally' evolve.

Thinking people don't say things like that because there are too many african americans alive today who'd respond, with unanswerable equanamity, so--you'd prolong my hell under Jim Crow so whites would have more time to become comfortable with ending their sinning?

Having said all that, if I could play king for a day and get all Americans to watch some specific television programming at some point this week, I'd surprisingly not pick American Idol (heck, no need to, everyone watches it anyway). I'd pick:

-Wide Angle's Pilgrimage to Karbalal: WIDE ANGLE travels with a busload of Shia pilgrims as they make their way from Iran to Iraq to visit Karbala, among the holiest sites in Shia Islam. Pilgrims travel to Karbala year-round to honor Hussein, the martyred grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, whose murder, in part, caused the schism between the Sunni and Shia. In the time of Saddam such observances were banned, but in wartime Iraq, marked by vicious sectarian violence, the pilgrimage is more dangerous than it has ever been. In PILGRIMAGE TO KARBALA we examine the roots of the Islamic schism, and see how an ancient murder affects the people of the Persian Gulf to this day.

-Frontline's War of Ideas: "In the fourth hour of News War, FRONTLINE/World reporter Greg Barker travels to the Middle East to examine the rise of Arab satellite TV channels and their impact on the "war of ideas" at a time of convulsive change and conflict in the region. His report focuses on the growing influence of Al Jazeera, and the controversy around the recent launch of Al Jazeera English, which U.S. satellite and cable companies have declined to carry. Barker also visits the "war room" of the State Department's Rapid Response Unit, which monitors Arab media 24 hours a day, and meets with U.S. military officers whose mission is to engage the Arab news channels in debate."

The two programs provide a good micro/macro balance, with Wide Angle's almost-cinematic look at a pilgrimage humanizing a country and religion that in the eyes of many Americans is all dark and bloody.

And Frontline's analytical examination of al-Jazeera and its censorship in the U.S. raising some uncomfortable questions about the closed mindset that George Bush has supposedly forced upon an otherwise liberal country.

In the end, if we indeed are to get the government we deserve, it's up to us to watch not just the programs of FOX but those on PBS as well. Now if only there were a way to combine the best attributes of both....

Uncredited photo of Karbala from Trekearth. Image of al-Jazeera logo found in various places online.