Political blogging (on Gaza and other conflicts)

Two things are all too common when it comes to blog posts on the war between Hamas and Israel, and indeed postings on most of the various conflicts around the world. The first thing is that the blogger is saying that whatever story he or she is telling, mainstream media is either not aware of it or deliberately keeping quiet about it. The other thing is that the blogger complains about how biased and unbalanced the mainstream media coverage of the conflict is. 

Well, the first these statement is almost never true. The story is usually out there. As for the unbiased and unbalanced reporting, this is almost always much much worse in the blog posts and the comments to them. My mainstream sources such as The Guardian, BBC, The Economist, International Herald Tribune or Svenska Dagbladet are handling the Israel/Hamas conflict very well, with the occasional blunder. (I will return with a list of recommened reading.)

It sometimes seems that to be a political blogger you have to be self delusional. Which obviously isn't true either (as this blog is a living proof of...) but is so depressingly often the case. I will not give any specific examples now, but just look at any random blog and chances are you'll see a good example of my point.

The conflict is much to complicated to get right in a few short lines in a blogpost, that goes without saying, but maybe if the bloggers (or facebook group instigators for that matter) spent more time actually trying to understand the conflict instead of raving about their own high moral standing and/or raging against mainstream media, it would make the world a slightly better place.