At the end of Winter term, the Student Assembly issued a call for "alternative media coverage" to be made available on campus. In one of those rare moments of quick administrative response, the Berry News Center soon dedicated one of its gigantic screens to showing the "International Channel" in lieu of Fox News in the morning. Since the International Channel has always been available on campus cable, the change was effected with a quick flick of the remote at little pain or cost.
The International Channel is, in fact, very "international." On the few occasions that I had watched it in the news center, I have learned more about other countries that I really needed to know. The channel has very little in-house content, but takes its programming from foreign TV networks. Once, I saw a Taiwanese news bulletin reporting with enthusiasm President Chen Shuibian's participation in local celebrations of International Women's Day. He was dancing on stage with a group of female delegates. The Japanese news bulletins are particularly interesting. On one occasion, a correspondent set out to find the restaurant that serves the best omelet in Tokyo. On another occasion, I watched a segment on how dogs in a Japanese town have been trained to serve as traffic wardens. A dog was shown wearing sunglasses and a policeman hat.
All this while a bloody war is happening in Iraq. At the same time, the news bulletins are shown in their original languages without English subtitles. The intended audience of the International Channel is clearly very different from what the Berry News Center imagined. The International Channel caters specifically to expatriate populations of countries like Japan or Taiwan. It is not broadcasting world news from an "international perspective" but really providing domestic news to those living outside of their home countries. It is fortunate that the International Channel's run at the News Center does not extend into the afternoon -- a quick check with the schedule reveals that this is when the Vietnamese and Korean soaps come on.
In their reflex action, the people at the Berry News Center probably didn't put much thought into what they are doing. A channel that broadcasts local news in local languages, in my mind, does not qualify as "alternative media coverage." The only time I have seen coverage of the war in Iraq on the International Channel, the news bulletin was in Greek. No doubt the channel is valuable for international students to keep in touch with events at home, or Dartmouth students learning foreign languages, but to offer it as an alternative to Fox News or CNN (as bad as these may be) is nonsensical.
At the very minimum, an alternative news source should be in English. As much as Dartmouth prides itself on its foreign language program and the Rassias method, English remains the most proficient language of most Dartmouth students. Any foreign language news channel necessarily caters to a very limited audience. Even the Arab news channel Al Jazeera becomes just an endless stream of images if viewers cannot understand the accompanying Arabic commentary. What then makes an English news channel "international?" It would be helpful if there isn't an American flag flying permanently in the corner of the screen (i.e. Fox News). Or that the events in the Middle East are described as "War in Iraq" rather than the grandiose name of "Operation Iraqi Freedom." The ultimate test would be if the parties involved in the conflict were called "American troops" and "Iraqi forces" rather than "our troops" and "enemy forces." What we are looking for is objective reporting that is clearly lacking from American television news networks rushing to prove their patriotic credentials.
If this is our criteria for choosing a suitable news source, our choices are limited. BBC World, the international news channel of the BBC, suits the bill. The BBC has 250 correspondents worldwide, quite fitting for an international news network. Although still linked to the British government, the BBC shows an admirable independence in its reporting. Another option would be CNN International, not the domestic version, but the news channel that has been packaged for global consumption, with much of the reporting coming from CNN studios in London and Hong Kong rather than Atlanta.
In the end, Dartmouth students deserve much better alternative news sources than Japanese reporting of the latest innovations in canine traffic management. If the administration cannot do more than this, perhaps it is time for students to do something for themselves. I believe the Student Assembly is willing to offer some money for this effort. How much would it cost to set up a satellite dish on the Green?
