U.S. media are largely ignoring the European Union’s efforts to make a bigger splash on the world stage by selecting a new full-time president of the European Council, the group of EU leaders that holds regular summit meetings, and a new High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy – in effect a foreign minister, although the British torpedoed the use of that title.
In the flood of commemorative comment on both sides of the Atlantic marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, one clear impression stands out. There is still no agreement on what the historic moment meant, or even why it happened.
Overuse and misuse of the verb “to see” are spreading like a pandemic through much of the U.S. and British media. The habit is more than just ugly and unnecessary; it betrays a sloppiness of thinking that is dangerous among journalists, who should be masters of succinct and clear expression.
"Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi," writes columnist Anne Applebaum in The Washington Post, "has been accused of bribery, tax evasion, corruption and subversion of the press." He makes embarrassing jokes and is at war with the Italian legal est
Once again, with a couple of honorable exceptions, the U.S. media failed to deliver on a major story about the European Union, which groups America’s closest allies and trading and investment partners.
The European media and political leaders are reacting to the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to President Barack Obama with official welcomes, hope, puzzlement, and some hostility.
In France, the daily newspaper Le Parisien writes lyrically:
The U.S. and European media are focusing heavily on the disastrous defeat of the Social Democrats, and an apparent shift of the electorate to the center-right, in their analyses of the German elections on September 27, which reinstalled Christian Democrat Angela Merkel as Chancellor.
Germany should overcome its Puritan ethic and wean its economy off a “destructive addiction” to industrial exports – in the interests both of Germany itself and of the rest of the world - writes Reginald Dale of the CSIS Transatlantic Media Network in the September issue of the magazine Industry Today.
Europeans are growing increasingly disillusioned with President Barack Obama’s failure to show international environmental leadership, with fears rising that high-level negotiations on climate change in Copenhagen in December may break down as a result.
Critics are slamming the fake, provocatively sexy, video sneaked onto YouTube by the Danish state tourist board, VisitDenmark, in an underhand manner earlier this month. But the controversial marketing ploy is seen by its sponsors as a huge success.
