Shame on LBC and MTV

I was planning to write something about this, but Habib Battah (an investigative journalist I admire) made a very good job exposing the stations’ lack of professionalism, shamelessness and irresponsibility in reporting cases like those of Myriam Ashckar and Burj Hammoud’s immigrants:

Rather than creating powerful content that educates and informs audiences, such organizations cynically mirror and amplify the latent fear and loathing that lives in minds of many Lebanese. Local TV stations substitute research and good old-fashioned reporting for unbalanced, shoddily constructed pieces masked in special effects and springing from visceral, misinformed xenophobic stereotypes.

He provides very good examples in his post on how LBC could have better handled the reporting of the crime.

When a country like Lebanon gets out of a civil war, broadcast media have an important duty to fight the ignorance and misconceptions that lead to such a war. They should not fan the flames in cheap sensationalist bits to get eyeballs.