It's not what you read, it's how you read it

On this bus this morning, while "reading" the paper (I use that term loosely), I came across this fabulous piece of journalism:

The headline reads "Ahmadinejad lives in a movie". The phrase "lives in a movie" in Hebrew means "is delusional" or "is being unrealistic". The story they are referring to is this one:

Art and cinema advisor to President Ahmadinejad says members of Iranian cinema community should not meet with team of visiting Hollywood actors, members of US movie industry before they apologize for films such as '300', 'The Wrestler' which have angered many in Islamic Republic.

See what they did there? Film stars. "Lives in a movie". Cute.

But somehow, in the translation from English to Hebrew, the story changed. It went from Ahmadinejad's advisor to Ahmadinejad himself, and suddenly the concept of apologizing for the negative portray of his people is such an outlandish request as to be seen as insane. Cause, you know, Jews have never criticised others' portrayals of them. There isn't, like, an entire organization dedicated to that very purpose.

It's not that I'm not used to reading biased media; it's a fact of life nowadays. I guess I'm just not used to it being quite so blatant. Even the New Testament Über Alles Network pretends to be objective. I was just talking with my cousin yesterday about how the American media can shape public opinion by what information they do and don't report. I guess we forgot how it's reported influences things too.

Good to know, no matter where you are, some things are constant.