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Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Comparative Journalism: Telescopic Vision

Every major press agency or news outlet dedicates an article to the Russian 'change of heart' concerning Syria. This evolution is of course mostly cosmetic, when the permitted language they will require for the draft to pass into a resolution is examined. In fact, mr. Lavrov explicitly states: 'I don’t think you can talk about any revision in our position, if you are familiar with the consistency of our recent statements,' And of course Xinhua also adds an article which states that Russia will honor its arms commitments to Syria, so as to offset the gravity a little. Only Iranian news agencies remain remarkably silent on this issue.

But not SANA, the Syrian Arab News Network. To confront the kaleidoscope of opinions concerning the statements of Lavrov, it offers a spectacular form of 'telescopic vision'.

It manages to completely ignore every statement at the expense of Syria: That the Syrian government 'responded incorrectly' and 'is making a lot of mistakes'.

But SANA carries a different message. A message of support, no doubt provided by that same Russian government. But it goes to show the split tongue of the Russians, the narrow scope of SANA, but in this case also of the BBC and other major western news organizations. Because all this indicates is Russia adapting its posture slightly, internationally, though not bilaterally. And nothing will change on the ground, in Syria.

'MOSCOW, (SANA) – Chairman of the Federation Council of the Russian Federation Valentina Matviyenko on Tuesday said that Russia is opposed to exerting excessive pressure on Syria and using force to undermine the authority in it, stressing that the Syrian crisis can only be solved by negotiations between the authorities and the opposition without preconditions.'

In other words: Let the Syrian government deal with its opponents in exactly the way they claim they are doing. The Syrian authorities have namely been involved in these negotiations for months now. They just need to get rid of some terrorists, too. And no-one should interfere with that.

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