The article I chose to analyze based on Lasch’s argument in his essay, "The lost art of argument" that we have lost the art of argument in our current society was published October 25th, 2008 on the front page of the New York Times. The article is called, “A puzzle over prisoners as Iraqis take control” and was written by Alissa J. Rubin. The topic of the article is the U.S. and Iraqi agreement to start releasing Iraqi prisoners from American detainment camps back into Iraq. The problem with this agreement is that some of these prisoners are very bad people, the Iraqis do not have enough prison space to hold them, the guilty prisoners will need hard evidence to prove they are guilty and releasing up to 17,000 detainees back into Iraq is going to make their already high unemployment rate skyrocket. Although Rubin states her argument as being in the form of a research question, she does not prove anything or, like Lasch believes with modern journalism, is not debating anything or giving out new ideas for the public to agree or disagree with. Her research question is easily found in the first paragraph as: what to do with the 5,000 Iraqi prisoners whom the United States military considers a threat to the hard-fought and still fragile calm in Iraq? Although she states this question, she never fully answers it nor gives her opinion on the subject. Rubin simply and objectively states the facts. She gives details about the American prisons in Iraq, numerous quotes from both Iraqis and Americans and facts about the Iraqi court system.
Although Lasch calls this type of journalism “modern journalism,” I believe this type of journalism actually is better suited to the title of “traditional journalism.” Traditional journalism is when a reporter simply writes about the who, what, why, where, and when, which is exactly what Rubin and many others journalists do today. When I think of modern journalism, no, I do not think about debates, but I do consider some parts of it being opinionated which leads to an argument and other times even investigative which could change our society.
As for the research part of Rubin’s article on the release of American-held Iraqi prisoners back into Iraq, I think she effectively answered the question she posed in the first paragraph at the best to her available sources. She answered what the Americans and Iraqi’s are planning to do with all of these detainee releases and the effects that American generals and some Iraqi locals believe will happen and are already occurring. If she wanted to get even better results, she could have added more sources to her research. For example, she could have interviewed imprisoned Iraqi detainees, newly released detainees or the views of the Iraqi police that are going to be in charge of some of the detainees and trying to keep the influx of the released detainees under control.
In conclusion, Rubin did not have much of an argument rather than a research question which she objectively answered with straight facts and quotes, but her research was effective and well gathered.
You can find this article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/25/world/middleeast/25detain.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=todayspaper
1 comment:
The article you chose fit well with the point you were trying to prove. It seems as though the article you chose did not debate anything nor give out any new ideas, yet the article clearly was not irrelevant (which is what Lasch definition of modern day journalism would say). The article was very interesting to read, it was simply set up and to the point. I agreed with the way you viewed this article in comparison to how Lasch would have viewed it. It seems as though the author set this article up in a way as to give the reader all the information and different perspectives on the situation but for them to make their own judgment. Since she keeps her personal opinions out this is an unbiased article, which allows the reader to make there own conclusion. I agree with your idea of “traditional journalism” and I think this article falls well into that category.
At first glance I see the article as credible because it is from the New York Times, which I believe to be a credible newspaper. I think your ideas at the end on ways to improve her credibility were well thought out and made a lot of sense. I specifically liked the idea of interviewing imprisoned Iraqis and Iraq’s police; those could have added a lot of value to the final article.
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