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Arab
and Western Media… Changing
Lanes?
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Al
Jazeera’s Tarek Ayoub, hours before he was killed by a US
airstrike
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When
the Second Gulf War erupted in 1991, Egyptian TV was almost entirely
dependent on CNN coverage of the war. The logo of the American news
channel appeared on almost every feed about the war.
For
many years Western media had represented the best option for Arab
viewers. First, it possessed the necessary resources for high
quality news coverage, resources that Arab media lacked. Secondly,
it was generally viewed as being free and unconstrained by political
considerations. It had gained a reputation of being motivated solely
by professional incentives, in which the first and most important
objective is to seek and present the truth as it is. This was in
contrast to Arab media, which had gained a reputation of being a
mere propaganda tool.
Now,
with the outbreak of the Third Gulf War, things might be changing,
and there is evidence to suggest that Western media might be losing
its edge in the Arab world.
Professional
Competence
Several
Arab satellite channels, notably Al Jazeera, Abu Dhabi TV, El Manar
TV and possibly the new member of the MBC group, Arabiyya, have
proven to have a high degree of technical and professional ability.
Arab media gained a reputation of being a propaganda tool. |
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Al
Jazeera has the largest number of reporters and cameramen in Iraq.
Many Arab and Western channels are highly dependent on its feed. The
channel is not very popular in the West, and is regarded by many to
be anti-American. Its airing of the footage of American dead or
captured soldiers antagonized many Americans and Britons. Yet, as
one Western TV reporter puts it, the feeling of anger and disgust
cannot be allowed to jeopardize the working relationship between Al
Jazeera and Western channels, because the latter are in strong need
for a good relationship with the Qatar-based news channel.
"Obviously we don’t want to use Al Jazeera," said one
journalist. "But if it’s Al Jazeera or nothing, we’ll take
Al Jazeera."
The
professionalism and sophistication attained by Arab satellite
channels is not surprising. Firstly, current events, particularly in
the Middle East, automatically grant them a comparative advantage.
Sharing the same language and culture with Iraqis makes it easier
for their reporters to communicate with the people and leaders of
Iraq. They were also the natural candidates for playing the role of
a communication medium between Arab people and the Iraqi leadership
before its demise. This role was lacking in 1991 when the war was
essentially covered by CNN, but during the recent conflict the Iraqi
regime was determined to use such a medium to mobilize support from
an audience that already had powerful sentiments against the
invading armies.
The
Communication Revolution
Arab audiences became cynical of traditional propagandistic media. |
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But
that’s not all. The political, economic and technological
developments of the last decade contributed to the progress of these
Arab channels. The ambitions of some Arab regimes (or sub-state
political organizations in the case of Hizbullah’s Al Manar TV) to
become influential regional powers have encouraged them to sponsor
satellite news channels that advocate their cause. This is not a new
phenomenon. During the so-called Arab Cold War in the 1960s, Nasser
and his rivals used radio channels loyal to them to undermine their
opponents. The difference however is that the new channels had to
achieve a high degree of professional excellence and some reasonable
degree of objectivity to attract an Arab audience that had become
cynical of traditional propagandistic media while at the same time
enjoying access to high quality Western media.
The
communication revolution of the late twentieth century was a
double-edged sword for Arab regimes willing to have their voices
heard through media. On the one hand, it put pressure on them to
compete with now widely accessible Western media. Yet on the other
hand, it offered them an opportunity to access a very wide audience.
With a potential audience of more than 45 million Arabic speaking
viewers (the current number of Al Jazeera viewers) it became
economically very attractive to invest in such an industry.
Perhaps
the best indicator on how influential some Arab media have become is
the attitude of the American leadership towards Al Jazeera, the most
popular Arab news channel. Joanne Tucker, the managing editor of the
new English website of Al Jazeera, said the US government had
started to soften its approach towards the channel before the war.
Its reporters were offered embedded spots with the American forces.
Additionally, influential figures in the military campaign’s
headquarters in Qatar have developed a close relationship with the
channel’s senior administration. In early March, several Central
Command public information officers attended a barbeque at the home
of Al Jazeera’s news director.
On
the other hand, there remains among the American leadership a strong
feeling of bitterness towards the channel, a feeling that must have
intensified after the controversial airing of footage of American
dead soldiers and POWs. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
launched a heated offensive on Al Jazeera on the same day, claiming
that the footage was a violation of the Geneva Conventions on the
rights of prisoners of war. Following that, a pair of Al Jazeera
Wall Street correspondents had their press credentials abruptly
revoked by the New York Stock Exchange, and according to Tucker,
both Yahoo and AOL have refused to run ads for Al Jazeera’s new
English website. In late March the Arabic and English websites were
the subject of an intensive cyber attack.
Many people view US hostility as further acknowledgment of Al Jazeera’s strength. |
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The
situation reached a dramatic climax on April 8, when Al Jazeera and
Abu Dhabi’s Baghdad offices were subjected to a US attack that
killed Al Jazeera’s reporter Tariq Ayoub and left the offices in
ruins. The US forces were accused of deliberately targeting the news
networks although there was no nearby firing from Iraqi forces. The
issue remains unresolved, and the Pentagon has been asked to conduct
an investigation of the incident. Nevertheless, many people view
this hostility as further acknowledgment of Al Jazeera’s strength.
Credibility
According
to some political and media observers, the war that was presented on
CNN was a war with lower casualties on both sides than the real war
taking place. Of course, the true numbers cannot be confirmed at
this point in time, however the declarations of Coalition leaders
were frequently discredited, especially during the early stages of
war. Having aligned themselves with their national leaders and
presenting their statements as being the “truth,” or at least
closer to the truth than the Iraqi version - which in several
incidents turned out to be more accurate - American and British
media had their own credibility negatively affected alongside their
military spokesmen.
In
the first couple of days of the war, most Western media neglected
Iraqi claims regarding Umm Qasr and adopted the Coalition’s
version of the story, stating that American and British troops had
full control over the port. It was later revealed that Umm Qasr did
not capitulate until the fourth or fifth day of the war.
Giving
a misleading impression of truthfulness to the Coalition leaders’
declarations can be attributed to the fact that a significant part
of the Western media’s sources during the war came from reporters
who were either embedded with the troops or located in the military
headquarters of the Coalition. These reporters got their information
primarily from American and British military personnel. Whether
other correspondents located in Iraqi-controlled areas did not have
access to Iraqi statements or whether they did have such access but
the editorial decision makers disregarded it, is not clear. At best,
it would mean that they did not have enough sources - whether
voluntarily or involuntarily - which is a professional shortcoming.
At worst, it would mean that the editors were being motivated by
sheer bias.
American
and British media were also criticized for how they presented the
war in such a way as to give the impression that it was a
“clean” war. A lot of emphasis was placed on the humanitarian
aid facilitated by Coalition forces in “freed” areas. On the
other hand, they treated Iraqi civilian losses and the misery
brought upon them by American and British bombs and missiles with
notable negligence. Instead, they gave a lot of weight to their
military leader’s declarations about the “precision” of their
weapons. During the war, the scene of Iraqi civilians stating that
they were happy to get rid of Saddam’s regime was more common on
CNN than the image of mothers crying in front of their dead
children’s bodies, although in reality the second scene was more
frequent.
Conveying
the impression of a low cost war served the double purpose of
presenting it as a war “for” the Iraqi people, and at the same
time one that is conducted with minimal loss for both parties to the
conflict. The message was: this war is worth fighting because its
benefits exceed its costs - a message the political leadership of
the USA and the UK badly needed people to believe in, given the
amount of opposition those leaders had been faced with, both
internationally and at home. Of course the unfolding events after
April 9, with Iraqis rejoicing at the fall of Saddam’s regime,
gave credit - deserved or not - to Anglo-American claims that the
Iraqi people would welcome the invading troops to get rid of the
Baa’th dictatorship. Assessing the reliability of this claim is
beyond the scope of this article. As far as this article is
concerned, the question is whether or not the media accurately
conveyed the events of the war moment by moment as they
unfolded. Speculations on how the Iraqi people actually feel should
not be given the authority of facts.
But
why is American media sacrificing its reputation of being free and
independent?
Why is American media sacrificing its reputation of being free and independent? |
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The
answer lies in the structure of the relationship between the media
and the governing elite. Throughout the past two decades, there has
been an increasing concentration of media tools in the hands of a
few corporations through a series of mergers. Today, nine or ten
huge media corporations control the press, TV channels, the
publishing industry, the movie industry and even the music industry.
In the fierce competition that governs them, these corporations
adopted an editorial policy that serves their need for financial and
political power by being inline with the interests of the political
and economic elite. The result was a network of powerful businessmen
and politicians promoting their interests through giant media
corporations (which increasingly became PR institutions) influencing
public opinion.
According
to the book “Into the Buzzsaw,” a compilation of leading
journalists’ testimonies on “The Myth of Free Press” (the
book’s sub title) by Kristina Borjesson, this coalition of the
powerful would not allow the press to criticize or get too close
to what the convictions of the elite (forming 2 - 3% of the
society). The book also examines how this power structure has
resulted in the vain attitude of the American media in the aftermath
of 9/11. It acted more like the spokesperson of the government
rather than a “fourth authority.” There was no serious
examination of the reasons for the events (or at least, no such
examination was allowed to reach a wide audience) and no questioning
of the value of going to war against Afghanistan and Iraq.
No
one can claim that Arab news channels are totally objective, but the
war in Iraq indicated that Western media was not being any less
subjective in its coverage. Indeed, there is plenty of evidence to
suggest that the performance of the Coalition’s media, and
particularly the American media, was governed to a large extent by
the political agenda of its governments.
In
a vote cast on the website of El Quds El Arabi, a London-based
Arabic newspaper, asking “Which of the following satellite
channels give the most competent and objective coverage of the
war?” Al Jazeera won 47.5% of the votes. The second was Al Manar
TV (35.6%), followed by CNN (10%). The list included other Arab and
Western channels, like BBC, Abu Dhabi TV, Arabiyya, etc. The vote
cannot reflect a fair and objective answer to the question, because
most voters are probably Arabs or Arabic readers, whose sympathies
are likely to lie with Arab media and against Western media.
Nevertheless, it gives an indication of how successful some Arab
satellite channels have been in covering the war; if not with more
skillfulness than their Westerns competitors, then at least not very
far behind, as was the case in the Second Gulf War and before.
Khaled
Ezzelarab is a Foreign Trade Analyst in the Egyptian Office of
the Minister of Foreign Trade and a writer. A graduate of Economics
and International Relations from the
American
University
in
Cairo
, he is currently studying for his Masters. You can reach him at kezzelarab@islam-online.net
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