I decided to get most of my news coverage today on the inauguration of president Barack Obama from foreign sources (over the internet). An outsider's perspective is often more accurate. I loved the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's coverage of the event - they had journalists stationed all around the world - in Japan, China, Africa, Russia, France and Britain - getting footage of folks' reactions to the event. I compared the look of poignancy and emotion on folks' faces in other countries to that of the people on the cold streets of Washington DC; the faces of foreigners seemed to show a more clear-minded and thoughtful attitude. The tears of joy were profound, and not muddied by the confusion and the conflicted feelings which stained the faces of the folks in Washington DC. The CBC also had a segment on the idea that the beginning of an Obama presidency marked a moment of "truce" in the "culture war" of the hyperbolic and unreasonable heated debates we have here in the usa. A truce! Imagine that! You would never see a usa media organization making that their big story of the day. You can't speak clearly about what you observe here in the usa, lest people get offended that you are being insensitive to the sanctity of the moment or boorish in regards to the feelings of others.

I also watched an hour or two of the New Zealand TV3's news coverage of the event. As I have mentioned on this blog, I have come to really admire new zealand. And the social dynamic which I appreciate there seems to be powered by the way the mass media there treats their subjects. They are focused on the idea of nurturing the people of new zealand. And the effect they have on their country's zeitgeist is marvelous. I really like the rational and meaty coverage of the canadian press better, personally - but I realize that it has kind of the opposite effect on the ordinary person up in Canada. A news organization drawing up a constant picture of the world which is full of dramatic doom and gloom is going to really weigh people's spirits down. And that's visible in canadian folks' attitudes. I honestly think that the mass media should treat events with a light touch. If people like me want fodder for their critical thought processes - they should be able to get that elsewhere - using the internet, for example.

I did have a strong reaction to the New Zealand coverage of the inauguration, however... and it's one which happened after a certain peculiar realization slowly dawned on me as I watched. The TV3 coverage was very two dimensional. They put the whole event into the overly simple narrative of the timeline of a country where african american slaves built the white house, to the civil rights movement, to today when an african american governs the nation in Washington DC. That may be a gentle and nurturing perspective for new zealanders to look at things within, but it ignores all the complexity of the things in the usa which create these social dynamics which go awry on an ongoing basis. Even though the news anchors weren't intending it - it seemed to be an awfully condescending perspective to put things into. New Zealand, in my estimation, is the one anglophone country which really has it together, in a way that Australia, Canada, the usa, Britain and India do not. There are four million people there. If they set their minds together to the task, they could really help folks in the usa develop a better society for themselves. But no... New Zealand is like an parent who neglects her kids to go off every night to fun social events... until years later her kid grows up and takes a wrong course in life, because of lack of that quality time and quality nurture which she or he needed.