For a deeper look at the events behind Gov. Salmaan Taseer’s killing in Pakistan, read this story from The Guardian, perhaps the best of Great Britain’s elite daily newspapers.
One of the many issues wrapped into this post is this: What is the value of having a foreign correspondent “on the ground” in Pakistan to explore this episode and explain it to a Western audience?
More Questions
How much does this article add to your understanding of events surrounding the assassination? And how would you rate the perspective of the piece?
If the article does a fair job of explaining the political, economic and social situation in this Punjabi area, what can you conclude about the desire to prosecute people — in this case a Christian — on blasphemy laws? Does the correspondent actually try to embrace the reasoning for such firm laws governing what people can say? Or is such a law simply too impossible for a Westerner to treat as legitimate?
Universal Ethics in International Reporting
Are there ethics or universal laws involved here that ought to span any civilization, any culture or place? In other words, are certain rules of behavior so obviously right, no matter where you are in the globe, that any reporter ought to be able to sift through a story and arrive at basic truths? Or are cultural rules and behaviors always contextual to time and place?
How might Samuel Huntington depict this incident, at least as it is described in the Guardian story?
How about Edward Said?
Global Media Studies 