Joel Schalit

The Liberal Arts

   
Ron Nachmann is an Israeli-American journalist based in San Francisco. A close friend and colleague, we’ve worked together at a number of different periodicals, including Tikkun, where Ron served as music editor. Now a contributor to Zeek, his latest article, a review of Tom Segev’s 1967: Israel, the War and the Year That Transformed the Middle East, was published in the December issue. It’s not only a marvelous piece of writing on an incredibly complex and politically loaded book. Ron’s essay is an excellent introduction to the politics of writing about Israeli history.

The appropriately-titled Continuity has finally arrived. A CD/DVD by the Tokyo-based, Polish sound artist Zbigniew Karkowski (in collaboration with Japanese videographer Atsuko Nojiri), this unorthodox career retrospective is the last project we signed when I was Asphodel‘s label manager. Already receiving excellent reviews in Europe from publications such as Vital Weekly, given press like this, I have the sneaking suspicion that Continuity will cement Karkowski’s reputation as one of the world’s most forward-thinking electronic musicians.

Publication Party

The new issue of Other is officially out. Though I’m running a little late posting this terrific postcard, (the release party took place a couple of weeks ago), we finally had the time to scan a copy.

A contributor (and sometimes contributing editor) to this great, freethinking mag since it was first launched, there’s a piece in the current issue by me, about my years editing the late Punk Planet.

For the first time since 2003, when I served up a really loud noise set for a bunch of tranny friends at a local hair salon, I brought my Macbook and MIDI controller to the Other party and played DJ.

Speaking of Punk Planet, Paul M. Davis posted his article on the distribution crisis that triggered PP‘s collapse to the magazine’s website. Click here to read his analysis. It’s from the very last edition.

Inside the Former Fortress

The acoustics in Akko‘s old city are something else. Next time I go home to Israel, I’m going to make a recording of a British friend with a thick cockney accent reciting T.S. Eliot poems, in Hebrew, inside.

Changing Channels

Speaking of Al Jazeera English, if you get the chance, check out  Roger Cohen‘s excellent op-ed on the Qatari broadcaster in today’s New York Times.

Discussing the difficulties that the service has had trying to find national distribution from America’s cable and satellite providers, the Times‘ International-Writer-at-Large extols the network’s virtues, noting, in reference to the same polarized context invoked in Friday‘s posting, that Al Jazeera is carried (by Yes) in Israel, where it replaced the BBC last winter.

Incidentally (and much discussed as of late) Al Jazeera English was also slated to replace CNN on Israel’s largest cable service, Hot, but was outbid at the last minute by Fox News.

Covering the Coverage

His curiosity piqued by a recent article in Haaretz discussing the relative merits of the New York Times‘ coverage of Israel, a colleague asked me if I could point him to what I think are the best studies of Western media reporting on the Arab-Israeli conflict. For those who understand the subtext of such inquiries,  the editor couldn’t have asked a more loaded question. To make such a request in today’s environment means that you first have to ask why the question is important, and second, for whom.

Since September 11th, domestic coverage of the Middle East has obviously become more significant. Not just because the attacks on New York and Washington signaled the beginning of a conflict  between America and West Asian Islamists. But, also because of how it placed far more editorial requirements on a news media already struggling – and, in the US, largely failing – to meet the complex cultural demands already required of Mideast coverage by the country’s Jewish and Muslim Diaspora communities.

US news agencies haven’t done the best job of striking this balance yet either. However, there is more English-language, Mideast-based media to rely on than ever before to make up for it. Take for example, Israeli publications like the English edition of Haaretz on the one hand, and Al Jazeera‘s English broadcasting service on the other, not to mention all of the translated editions of regional sources in between. Americans now have every opportunity to read news that’s potentially more informative.

Though "local" is not always a synonym for "better", irrespective of partisanship and the limitations international media inevitably find themselves subject to, in comparison, few domestic sources, including the ethnic press, deliver the same quality goods.  Does that mean that American periodicals should hang up their hats? No. Because of this country’s obvious ties to the region – economic, cultural, and military, to name a few – US news outlets are morally obligated to continue reporting on the Mideast.

The question is how. Obviously, one answer would be to create content that was complementary with a foreign reporting that is better privileged for information. Another angle would be to concentrate on commissioning work on the numerous ways in which Americans deliberate about their involvement in a particular country’s affairs. Thus, you emphasize domestic political discussions at, say the State Department, or, amongst Americans with cultural ties to said state, instead of the other way around.

As many editors at American news periodicals will tell you, the two biggest complaints about Mideast coverage are always that its either anti-Semitic, or similarly compromised by a desire to satisfy special interest groups. The problem with such criticisms is that they’re not only frequently incorrect. But, most importantly, that they help divert editorial attention away from very real ethical problems, like learning how to properly tailor international news for a cosmopolitan, multicultural readership – during wartime.   

- From my notebook, Nov 1.

Left of the Middle East

From an unpublished conversation with a Jewish magazine editor

We have a terrible disjuncture at present, where the critical coverage that we increasingly rely on in this country comes from progressive sources that aren’t as discriminating in their approach to the Middle East as they should be. Being rightly committed to criticizing imperialism and colonialism, they frequently make the mistake of seeing all of the disparate crises afflicting the region as being different versions of the same political problem. It’s like saying that all Jews or Arabs are identical.

Take a look at how the occupation of Iraq has impacted a lot of progressive reporting on Israel: As the occupation has worsened, it has increasingly conditioned a way of covering the country that has assimilated Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians with the situation created by the Americans in Iraq. The problem is that if this is the general disposition of the left press in covering the region, it therefore makes it difficult to explain the very real differences that distinguish the Iraqi refugee crisis from the Palestinian, Kurdish, or Armenian refugee crises which preceded it.

The Middle East is a very big place. Even within the space of short distances, such as that which exists between Gaza and Ramallah, the cultural and political distinctions can be extraordinary. The irony is that this is partially a product of territorial divisions first introduced by Europeans to the area. We ought to encourage the journalists we work with to strike a better balance between understanding the Middle Eastern experience of the West with the domestic differences that the outside world seems so oblivious towards.

The Ice Age is Here

Speaking of the golden oldies, in today’s Guardian, there’s an absolutely terrific article on the continuing relevance of The Clash‘s 1979 LP, London Calling. Penned by Joe Queenan, this is the kind of exquisitely written, politically-charged music criticism glaringly absent from most US news periodicals.

Part of an ongoing series of articles commemorating the 30th anniversary of the first punk explosion, The Guardian’s special focus on ’77 contrasts sharply with the near-exclusive emphasis placed on remembering 1967′s Summer of Love in the arts sections of numerous American dailies over the past few months.

None of this is to say that similarly high quality, big picture music writing can’t be found here. I’ve worked with countless first class writers for whom this kind of journalism is second nature. The problem is a resistance to commissioning such pieces outside of indie music magazines and alternative weeklies.

From Here to Epitome

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

In July, we started to receive a complimentary ‘subscription’ to The San Francisco Examiner. By featuring musicians like Nick Cave and Yo La Tengo on its cover, this historically conservative (and now free) tabloid appears to be intent on capturing my specific demographic: post-punk professionals who came of age in the early 1990s. In other words, the Nirvana generation.

I find such explicit overtures annoying because American news periodicals always over-emphasize their music coverage when they don’t know who their readership is. I can’t tell you how many editorial meetings I’ve attended over the years where an editor has asked the staff to "up" the coverage of cool bands when they’re worried that they’re not reaching a younger audience.

Just look at the headlines above to see what I mean. Fifty-year old Nick Cave "Gets Rowdy", fourty something Yo La Tengo "Still Has It." Its the kind of self-conscious headline writing that speaks reams about what the editors are really worried about: the vitality and worth of their newspaper.

Thinking Ahead

When I first began working in publishing, it was the mid-1990s. The ‘zine explosion was already well underway, and the first web periodicals (such as Bad Subjects) were just starting to build the first substantial online readerships. Conversely, in the world of books, traditionally academic, non-fiction publishers such as Verso were beginning to chalk up serious successes with crossover political titles, such as journalist Doug Henwood’s legendary Wall Street.  For the intellectual left, it was a time of immense creativity and ferment.

Compared to the past, according to the headlines, all we currently have to offer is a culture of continuous crises and closures. Music consumption is at an all time low, magazines and newspapers (both in print and online) point to dwindling (and, to be quite frank, aging) readerships, and book publishers keep issuing reports of mounting losses. After my new book is done, one of the things I would definitely like to explore is writing a cultural history of this period. Say, 1989-2009.

Bass Materialism: Grievous Angel Presents Dubstep Sufferah Volume 3
 

The New Jewish Left

Israel has become ‘normalized’ within Diaspora identity, (as it is for Israelis) even though the country may no longer be considered central to what it means to be religiously Jewish. From this context stems the freedom to adopt the progressive positions espoused by peace and justice oriented Israel advocacy organizations such as Brit Tzedek v’Shalom and Jewish Voice for Peace.

Along with this normalization of pro-Israel identity for Diaspora Jews has come an increasing unwillingness to refrain from criticizing the Jewish state. Where Diaspora critics of Israeli policies were once silenced by accusations that they were self-hating Jews, they now fight back by referencing the lively debate on the same policies in Israel itself. 

- Excerpted From "Everything Falls Apart", my contribution to the forthcoming anthology of new Jewish progressive writings, Righteous Indignation. (Jewish Lights, 2008.)