Winds of Change.NET: Watching the Foreign Press

March 6, 2005

Watching the Foreign Press

by Joe Katzman at March 6, 2005 12:51 PM

Ahh, computer working again, for now. British reader Robin K writes:

"We have developed a website called www.WatchingAmerica.com - which is the first of its kind. We present links to news about the U.S. written outside the U.S. Much of it is written originally in other languages - so we provide translations, which you can access at a single click. You can therefore read what the Iraqis, French, Germans, Saudis etc. are saying to each other about the U.S.A. lot of the material we have is therefore not available in English anywhere else in the world. It is updated continually."

This could be a very useful site for bloggers. Our affiliate site at WATCH/ has done some very useful translations of French articles related to the War on Terror, as well as covering articulate intellectual dissenters within that society. More of that sounds like a good thing. The machine translation on Robin K's site is good as a starting point, and many articles have cleaned-up versions as well.

Hopefully, blogs can help foster a bit of foreign media savvy in our readers. When we quote something, it will be useful to note the source's underlying point of view and level of independence. This is especially true re: "media" from China, Cuba, et. al., but it applies more broadly as well - unlike the LA Times, bloggers ought to have standards.

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Comments

#1 from Brian H at 3:26 pm on Mar 06, 2005

This is really good! Here's an excerpt:

Arab world in Wonderland

Lebanon's independent Daily Star said in its February 23 editorial entitled, "Arab world in Wonderland, or how to face a realigning West" that it expected US-European relations to improve, adding that those who had bet on a "long-term tearing asunder of the trans-Atlantic alliance ... were clearly misguided".

The English-language daily argued that the "emerging reality effectively equates to a revision of the Middle East and a new definition of stability" as the West sees it, which it added was taking place without the participation of the Arab world.

"There is nothing new here," said the paper. "The Arab world, always fragmented and bickering, would have trouble organizing a trouble-free kebab barbecue, let alone a shared response to a new US-European alignment on the region."

Heh. Lots of good writing and commentary here. Thanks for the pointer.

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