Qaddafi: thank you Amanpour

The madman was cornered, still a dangerous Nero ready to set his country alight, but an isolated tyrant losing the PR battle (remember those sightings of a weirdo under an umbrella or waving from the top of a wall under an armored suit ?).

The dictator recovered. At the military level by crushing rebels, but furthermore in the media, with the blessing of international franchises looking for a scoop.

Ever the attention junkie, Christiane Amanpour waltzed the waltz for ABC. The Beeb, LCI, they all got their photo op with the ailing Adolf.

Guess what ? The message passed very well. Not that Muammar is telling crazy things, but that the same old Qaddafi is more than ever at ease in front of cameras in his own country. What, me worry ?

Meanwhile, the international community is as expected doing nothing to stop the carnage. At one stage, the League of Arab States seemed eager to pose a threat, but the only intervention so far has been a Saudi Arabian invasion of Bahrain to save the local Sunni king.

Is Qaddafi's fall the best case scenario ? Can Benghazi resist ? Will Libya split ? Will Daiichi melt in Fukushima ? Which one got your attention ?

blogules 2011

Lake - Hodson - Stevens

I used to like Fareed Zakaria and Christiane Amanpour (pronounce: meeee, Christiaaaaaann Amaaaanpur) when they focused on their subjects instead of themselves. Now I don't see journalists but ambitious egos. I hope Hala Gorani won't follow the same path.

What I do enjoy on CNN International is the World Business Today NYC-HK-London trio composed of - respectively - Maggie Lake, Andrew Stevens, and Charles Hodson. They are kind, eager to bring the news, and obviously enjoying the moment they share together without competing against each other (not a meagre feat in this mine field). Don't expect in-depth analysis from Stevens, but don't expect a horripilating Richard Quest moment either : where Quest plays the clown, Stevens seems closer to the circus announcer launching a pleasant ping pong game between a sharp and to the point New Yorker (Lake) and a witty Beeb-raised Britton (Hodson).

CNN International's weird roster also includes a Canadian garden elf sans beard (Jonathan Mann), a bambi mesmerized by her own reflection in a mirror (Anjali Rao), an overweight Peter Graves (Jim Clancy), or a nip / tuck survivor (when Rosemary Church needs to workout her calves, she only has to pronounce the letter "o" - I don't want to know what happens when she goes all the way and closes her mouth).

BBC World News boasts a different stable : a Philippino toad speaking like a machine-gun (Rico Hizon for Asia Business Report), a hedgehog speaking through his nose (Jonathan Charles), a British-Pakistanese cat articulating like no other (Mishal Husain), a Mel Gibson wannabe pantomime-ing business news (named ???), a tall Droopy unable to say "you know what ? I'm happy" (Peter Dobbie), or a veteran CSIS / MI5 / KGB / Mossad / DST / mole (Lyse Doucet).

Most of them are endangered species : simple English will eventually prevail worldwide as it does across the US.

blogules 2009