{"id":4691,"date":"2011-03-05T12:13:22","date_gmt":"2011-03-05T08:13:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/?p=4691"},"modified":"2011-03-06T16:07:08","modified_gmt":"2011-03-06T12:07:08","slug":"the-vogue-assad-controversy-a-view-from-syria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/middle-east-society\/the-vogue-assad-controversy-a-view-from-syria\/","title":{"rendered":"The Vogue-Assad Controversy: A View from Syria"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It whipped up a storm<\/a> on the net. Now Vogue is explaining why it chose to run an apolitical profile<\/a> of Asma Al-Assad at a time like this.<\/p>\n

The magazine\u2019s senior editor, Chris Knutsen, tells Max Fisher at The Atlantic<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe thought we could open up that very closed world a very little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n

And that, they did. He goes on:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe piece was not meant in any way to be a referendum on the al-Assad regime. It was a profile of the first lady.\u201d<\/p>\n

On accusations that the story was a propaganda puff piece:<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the way they portray themselves [in the story] is probably pretty accurate.\u201d<\/p>\n

And what of the weird timing:<\/p>\n

\u201cBy the time the article was closed and shipped, in mid January, we had only just learned about events in Tunisia.\u201d<\/p>\n

For an analysis of what went wrong, you\u2019d think Fisher would check his own facts. But no, his sloppy writing leads him to say:<\/p>\n

\u201cBashar\u2019s Syria has invaded Lebanon, allied itself with Iran, aided such groups as Hamas and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, and, for years, ferried insurgents and terrorists into Iraq, where they kill U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not even the US army has accused Syria of \u201cferrying\u201d fighters into Iraq \u2013 the worst accusation is that they have turned a blind eye, or not secured the border. And, as far as I am aware, \u201cBashar\u2019s Syria\u201d never invaded Lebanon.<\/p>\n

What interests me is the hypocrisy this article is bringing out in my peers. They slam Vogue for running this story, but I suspect (and some have admitted) that they would stay silent if Vogue ran a fawning story on Queen Rania of Jordan. I don\u2019t seem to remember many cries when Glamour magazine picked Rania as a Woman of the Year 2010<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SYRIA NEWS WIRE: Vogue has responded to the controversy caused by its profile of Asma al-Assad. There’s hypocrisy in the charges being laid at her door. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":81,"featured_media":4692,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90,5],"tags":[453,3842,227,18306,5126,18321,18305,18309,5127,2961,18330,18322,18302,2903],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4691"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/81"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4691\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}