Gettleman off the point in NYT Week in Review Aug 16/09

In an unnecessarily long and windy piece in the NYT week in review Jeffrey Gettleman, "Our Man in Central Africa" opines that the excessive news coverage of the gaffe about Mrs. Clinton and her husband happened because "Americans" care more about celeb personals than about Africa. But here's an obvious case of the media mistaking its own interests and inclinations for those of the public. Gettleman spent many paragraphs over several days on the gaffe but just one or two on an African's opinion about US foreign policy in Africa.

(A Congolese student asked Mrs. Clinton if the US would assassinate him if he became president are followed an independent course of policy not in synch with US's perceived interests. She gave a dignified but humble answer that acknowledged problems with past US actions there.)

Contradictorily, Gettlement criticizes Mrs. Clinton's young team as elitist for hurrying the news team along and getting her quickly to the airport on a highway closed for that purpose.

In the same article, though, he describes how Mrs. Clinton courageously organized several public forums in Congo so that citizens could question her and express their views. Too, she put herself on the front lines in eastern Congo to interview refugees and focus on the massive problem of rape in the war zone.

Maybe this reporter should have slept in yesterday and waited until he had more illuminating, useful, and consistent comments on our Secretary of State's truly historic trip to a huge, rich, vital country that, but for colonial and neocolonial abuses should be the "US" or "Brazil" of Africa.