Off the Rails
1Description
1. Julia Rock [@jul1arock], reporter at the The Lever, and Allison Fisher [@citizenfisher], director of the Climate and Energy Program for Media Matters for America, on why the Ohio derailment was a foreseeable disaster and how dearth of early media coverage, which failed to hold parties accountable, left space for distrust. Listen.
2. Gönül Tol [@gonultol], the founding director of the Middle East Institute's Turkey program and author of "Erdoğan’s War: A Strongman’s Struggle at Home and in Syria," on the impact of government corruption on Turkey's death toll after this month's earthquake. Listen.
3. Natasha Hall [@NatashaHallDC], a senior fellow at the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, on the ways politics have played into a delay in aid in Syria. Listen.
4. Keren Landman [@landmanspeaking], senior reporter covering public health and emerging infectious diseases at Vox, on the risks of bird flu and if we should be worried about another pandemic. Listen.
Music:
Fallen Leaves - Marcos Ciscar
Invitation to a Suicide - John Zorn
Berceuse In D Flat Major, Op. 57 - Ivan Moravec
Time Is Late - Marcos Ciscar
When Doves Cry
Airborne Toxic Event
Lachrymae Antiquae - Kronos Quartet
White Man Sleeps - Kronos Quartet
The Old House - Marcos Ciscar
United States
The lady reporting on Syria seemed to focus on conveying her own groaning dejection through mostly scattershot aspersions. It's a lazy sort of modern reporting that just blames every institution while avoiding the hard questions of local responsibility. E.g., to what extent are Syrians responsible for their own governance? It seems the same people who caterwaul about the lack of international aid also refer to efforts at strengthening governance as illegitimate, colonial interventions. It all plays by the dicatators' handbook. Moping, croaking, accusatory reporting just isn't journalism. A journalist needs to be more than a megaphone for other people's emotions and hypotheses.