If you read past the headline, congratulations, you are one of the few individuals who care. I wanted to write about this since I saw the video on Mujahideen Ryder’s blog. These past couple of days, I kept opening WordPress wondering if I should just write about something else — something more people would enjoy reading. I even made a whole other post ready to publish, but something stopped me.
I don’t want to be one of those people who just write for entertainment purposes. I will never write something just to cause controversy. I guess you can say I’m the black sheep of the journalism industry. While everyone else writes what will get
more readers and more subscriptions, I’ll write what needs to be said no matter the reaction from the audience or even if there is no audience at all.
I guess you can say I’m a little disgusted with those methods, since I worked at a paper that used them — but then again, which newspaper doesn’t?
The reality is, the media dictates what we should think is important in the world and what we shouldn’t care too much about. You have media gatekeepers, people you don’t know anything about, saying, ‘This is what society should be talking about and this is something that is not really important or interesting to anyone.’
According to gatekeepers, people should care about Donald Trump’s hair or Barack Obama wearing Kenyan clothing.
One of those topics gatekeepers are telling us is not important is Iraq. Iraq won’t bring readers anymore. Iraq is something so, so far away; old news.
As you know, the video I’m posting is not pleasant in nature. It will cause emotional distress for those of you with a heart. And while I’m telling you this, perhaps half of you have already closed the window or have navigated away from this site. For those of you who haven’t, take a look at the video:
I don’t want to be another one of the ones who just turns away from the remembrance, just because it’s not pleasant to think about. I’ve done it before and I’m sure you have too. You see something depressing, you get sad for a couple of moments then block it out as something far and away; something you have very little to do with.
Reading this post is painful and uncomfortable for you. Because you know it’s exactly what you’ve done in the past and you don’t know how to stop from doing it again, today.
For one, we need to make dua for our brothers and sisters in Iraq and ask Allah to ease their hardship soon.
And lastly, for those of you with blogs, in journalism, or those of you who give lectures frequently don’t write with your viewers in mind, but write with your viewers in mind. Don’t write because you know it’s what they want to hear and will bring more fans your way, write because it’s what they need to hear. And leave the rest for Allah.
In a way I guess I, too, am a gatekeeper now. And Iraq, and the state of Muslims around the world is what I think is important and it’s something we should never forget. May Allah ease their hardship and strengthen the Muslimeen. ameen.
wallahu ta’ala alem.
Stumble it!
May 30th, 2008 at 11:45 am
“write because it’s what they need to hear. And leave the rest for Allah.”
great advice!
Ameen to your dua!
May 30th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
‘May Allah ease their hardship and strengthen the Muslimeen. Ameen’
Ameen, Jazaki Allahu khayran for the reminder Shirien.
May 30th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
Allah Yibarik Feeky Inshaallah
We need more people with the same mentality
June 1st, 2008 at 2:47 am
salam alikom thanks u for the post its sad because sometimes when u do talk about these things everyone pushs u away and doesnot want to deal with u which discourages u and makes u keep it to urself since u are reminding them of hardships of others i remember a quote by a palistanian lady said ” if it bothers u to see this pics on tv it bothers us more to live it every day”
jazaki allah khair
abo al noom
June 1st, 2008 at 5:27 am
that’s a pretty powerful quote subhanallah. may Allah make it easy on them, ameen.
I was told I was “idealistic” when writing this post.
that may be true, and I really DON’T expect the industry to change, but we as Muslims can stop letting the media dictate to us what we should think is important or not.
There was a very good lecture by Imam Anwar AlAwlaki that I listen to recently on halaltube.com and he was basically talking about defending the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam and the punishment of those who speak bad about him (salallahu alayhi wa sallam)
In the lecture he mentioned the Danish Cartoon incident, and he mentioned that subhnaallah the Kuffar have desensitized us with our media. why? because there have been other instances after this that people have publicly said or did something offensive against the Prophet (sallahu alayhi wa sallam) but since it’s “already happened” our response is a lot less now.
This is the problem with getting the media to tell us what is important and what’s not important. the media tells us that Muslims are “crazy” for their reaction to the cartoons, when in fact the reaction was not even enough for the honor of Rasool Allah, salallahu alayhi wa sallam.
so by all means I’m not expecting a change.. but we can at least change our mentality and be our own gatekeepers, thus keeping us closer to the truth.
wallahu alem.
June 1st, 2008 at 8:46 pm
I just got an AWESOME idea for a video to produce from reading your responses
Thanks abo al noom and Shiriene
June 2nd, 2008 at 8:33 am
keep the voice alive, we are listening to you. Also since your target audience are Muslims why don’t start each post with bismiallah or Assalamu Alaikum?
salams from Sri Lanka
June 7th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
If you look at the negative comments I get from the majority of my readers you will see that I generally speak my mind no matter what the reader wants to read.
People who do otherwise are like actors playing in a show seeking the adoration of the audience. Big egos… bigger stories.