The cheapest trick in the book for second rate journalists
to sound more important than they are, is to look around for something that's
about to happen, pretend not to know that, and advocate it.
If what they advocated happens, they take credit and pat
themselves on the back publicly. If it doesn't happen, which is a possibility –
well then, it is too bad. They do not remind the readers they advocated
something that didn't happen, and move on till another opportunity presents
itself.
This scenario has been repeating itself lately with
journalists who are not exactly household names. Very few readers would have
noticed what they were saying because the airwaves and the print media were
filled with so much noise, their voices came out no louder than a faint squeak
that's trying to compete against the roar of a passing train that keeps passing
without end.
The latest opportunity these characters tried to seize is
the situation in Egypt .
They and others like them spent the last five years yodeling the macabre
refrain: the end is near for Egypt ;
the end is near for Egypt .
When this did not happen, and the country came out the bottleneck intact, they
began to suspect something, having felt a collision involving a massive boot
and their behind.
Perhaps a mentor that is way smarter than they was
explaining to them that when a country goes through an experience such as that
and survives, the pent-up demand for goods and services is so huge, it spurs
economic activities that trigger a chain reaction. New businesses are
established, jobs are created, investments in new ventures take off like a
rocket, and all of that will propel Egypt to the forefront of the
nations enjoying the highest economic rate of growth.
Yes, that's cool. But instead of these characters doing what
they do normally which is to start an echo chamber and repeat what their mentor
has told them about a bright future opening to Egypt, they continued to paint a
picture of an Egypt that's about to go under. This gave them the opportunity to
advocate doing something to save the country. To this end, they pleaded with
the incoming American administration to get involved with Egypt and do its part because things are dire
with America 's
“important ally in the region.” Whether or not America will listen to them, they
plan to take credit when the Egyptian economy takes off like a rocket.
One of the most bizarre pleas came from Bel Trew who sounds
so hungry to be noticed, the editors of the most beastly of the journalistic
beasts – one named The Daily Beast – knew exactly under what freakish headline
to put her article. They chose this formulation: “Trump's Crisis Nobody Is
Talking About Is in Egypt ,”
published on November 16, 2016 in The Daily Beast.
Not only did the editors act this badly, they added an
editorial note disguised as a subtitle. It went something like this: “America 's Trump and Egypt 's Sisi have good rapport. But
will that put food on the table of 20 million hungry Egyptians.” Well, my friend
let it be said that this will not sound funny to the 50 million Americans who
are on food stamps – some of whom go to bed having had nothing to eat, and
children who go to school having had no breakfast.
These people never saw the beastly editors advocate anything
for them, yet here they are advocating for the 1.5 million families that
receive food subsidies in Egypt .
Yes, life is not fair like they say, but when your own people are unfair to you
while going out of their way to be fair to foreigners, you wonder if they are
not beasts in reality, and not in name only.
Back to Bel Trew. What did she do? She went to a small
village in the poorest area of Egypt
where she met the most destitute man in the village, and interviewed him. He is
a construction worker with five children who says he did not work full time for
a year. He does odd jobs for now, and receives aid from private charities as
well as food parcels distributed by the government, he says.
He used to get by, he goes on to say, but now that the IMF
has imposed conditions on Egypt
before accepting its application for a loan, it is becoming even more difficult
to get by. Prices have increased dramatically in response to the IMF demand to
float the currency, he explains. He still gets by, however, and his real
complaint is that “it is not right, they should give me a way of making my own
living, not reduce me to living off gifts”.
What Bel Trew did not say is that the effect of the IMF
giving Egypt its seal of approval
will open the floodgate of investments to come into the new economic tiger that
Egypt
promises to become. And that's where you sense the beastly nature of The Daily
Beast. Instead of tackling the subject from the angle of investments coming
into the country and creating the jobs that will employ that man, they go off
on a tangent that might amuse a twelve year-old but not a well adjusted
eighteen-year old. That's what journalism has become in America .