Syria Today | Look Who’s Talking in the Arab World

Look Who’s Talking in the Arab World

Words Rime Allaf

It is often in times of severe crisis, or of war, that the vast gulf separating media on either side of the Atlantic, and on either shore of the Mediterranean, becomes most visible, audible and practically touchable. Indeed, it becomes obvious to the degree of ridicule that the same event or incident can be presented in manners that are not only different, but opposing. Israel’s assault on Gaza, for example, was a typical case highlighting the fact that regardless of their political orientations or sympathies, Arabs and Americans were watching different wars. Such a statement would have been largely sufficient only a few years ago to summarise the main problem of us versus them: we supported one side, they the other.

In some ways, those were the good old days of the pan-Arab message, in all its simplicity and homogeneity. The stations sounded nearly identical, the newspapers carried similar variations of headlines, and the television channels could hardly bother to compete. To each his own, and ours was simply a fact of life, a droning, yawn-inducing necessary interlude to endure while waiting for the weather projection and the main movie. Little comfort came from knowing that their freedom of the press vanished when reporting Israel-related news and it took the advent of satellite television, followed by digital and virtual communication, to take things to another level.

It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of Al Jazeera, a revolutionary medium which shook the Arab world and made the West sit up and take notice. People (and officials) either loved it or loved to hate it, but were not indifferent. Even so, many years after the birth of the mother of all Arabic news channels, serious disagreements remain about its achievements. One by one, Arab countries found fault with its journalists or took offense with its programmes, while commentators who neither watched it nor understood Arabic accused it of being inflammatory, spectacular and biased.

But what defines the parameters of the acceptable, or the ideal? And while all media are expected to apply full impartiality, objectivity and neutrality, can even a single media outlet pretend to lead by example? It takes a lot more than a declaration of ethics to qualify, and it would seem that for all its shortcomings, Al Jazeera has lessons to take from no peer.

Debunking the myths of Western media
Before satellite and the internet allowed proper evaluation and comparison, textbooks remained unchallenged in their descriptions of journalism. Western media was presented as a bastion of ethics following a stringent code of conduct, letting investigative journalism uncover the massacre of My Lai, the scandal of Watergate or the abuses in Abu Ghraib. There was supposed to be a clear cut between fact-checked news and opinion; the latter was clearly distinguished as being either the view of the media itself (editorial) or that of other commentators, opposite the editorial (op-ed). Broadcast journalism followed the same strict divisions between fact and opinion, between reporting and editorialising, and prizes such as Columbia University’s Pulitzer Prize were honours for which all strived, celebrating the sacredness of free, objective and impartial media.

If it could be found, this media would certainly be worth defending in full. In reality, most self-proclaimed fair and balanced media are deficient in more than one factor, usually revolving around the notion of freedom from bias, from censorship, or from giving a complete picture.

Unlike Al Jazeera, which can confidently support its claim that it airs a spectrum of opinions in its coverage, most other media only really have the one basic opinion and not much, if any, of the other opinion. Like the most austere official media of old, they automatically invite guest opinions which are more royal than the king, sometimes admitting opposing views by quoting them, making them sound ridiculous or dangerous, or by giving harried guests mere seconds to respond to a barrage of accusatory questions.

Faltering institutions
Giving only part of the story is bad; peddling lies, propaganda and knowingly falsifying the facts is even worse. Unfortunately, the media institutions which should have been the solid rock of reliability have proved as flimsy as common tabloids and as untrustworthy as communist era agencies.

The New York Times’ mea culpa one year after the invasion of Iraq, admitting some guilt in publishing the Bush administration’s stories without checking them, proved that not all the news was actually fit to print. Its very incomplete apology only skims the surface of the damage done by free media ‘reporting’ big lies and passing them off as facts, including the scourge of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction or Israel’s self-defence in disputed rather than occupied territories.

Integrity has waned in the media we were supposed to uphold as examples, with language degenerating into convenient ambiguity at best and outright deception at worst. Israel’s hasbara is one of the oldest propaganda machines serving as a thesaurus to media accomplices who continue to demonstrate that there is no such thing as media without an agenda. The recent refusal of the BBC to broadcast the Gaza emergency charity appeal, on the preposterous claim that it would compromise its impartiality, merely confirmed its submission to powerful agenda setters, a feat already demonstrated with its disgraceful backtracking after the British government’s fury over the infamous “sexed-up Iraq dossier”.

The good, the bad and the pretty
Such shortcomings should be of no comfort to today’s Arab media, a generic term joining public and private media whose own deficiencies are legendary and hardly worth rehashing. Sadly, the ‘free’ Arab media cited as example amounts to nothing more than channels and papers belonging to competing Lebanese warlords and politicians, although a surge in various Arab networks (such as in Egypt) has added businessmen to the lucky club of agenda setters which was previously limited to governmental channels.

The fact remains that red lines are difficult to cross in the region, especially after the Arab League’s adoption of a media charter which can stifle the most resilient professionals. While Western media could eventually take risks and venture into principled independence, Arab media will never rise to the challenge under such rigid laws, even though it has made great strides in the recent past, thanks mostly to Al Jazeera which paved the way.

Many Arab channels can be considered professional and manage relative degrees of objectivity – as long as the subject does not touch red lines – and sleek, modern and technically advanced studios have multiplied across the region, manned by polished presenters and efficient reporters. But for all these good broadcasters and publishers, bad examples continue to roam the airwaves, stuck in a time warp and disinclined to even change form or content, guaranteeing job continuity to stiff newsreaders in the most rudimentary of facilities.

There is also, alas, the category of the pretty faces, the attractive designs, the cool graphics and the fashionable gear, pleasing to the eye if not the ear, and with no effort to camouflage the unbearable lightness of their being. Sadly, with varying degrees of penetration in public and private media, they make absolutely no contribution to the development of media in their respective location and are copycats of the ignorant kind.

The missing frame
Despite being regularly dismissed as impotent and uninfluential, Arabs are being courted by an impressive array of foreign media networks, eager to follow on the footsteps of Al Jazeera, and Al Arabiya to a lesser extent, and to reach the proverbial hearts and minds in the region.

After the US’s useless attempts with Al Hurra, France’s France 24, Britain’s BBC Arabic, Iran’s Al Alam, Germany’s Deutsche Welle Arabia and Russia’s Rusiya Al Youm have joined the race to conquer Arabic speakers, with negligible results. For the time being, Arabs seem settled with their local providers, but an interesting development could see more ventures into foreign lands. With the slow but steady progress of Al Jazeera English, there is clearly room and indeed urgent need for Arab perspectives to cross borders and to be communicated directly without the selective and destructive translations of MEMRI-style Zionist outlets.

Arab media has a high hill to climb and many tricks of the trade to learn. In particular, it must impose coverage of Arab affairs, in all their abundance and diversity, to be made within an Arab-designed frame, rather than the frames (including “Israel’s right to exist” and “anti-Semitism”) which enemies have successfully set as default for the last decades. Unlike the easing of the Arab media charter, this is not mission impossible.

Rime Allaf is an international consultant and an Associate Fellow at London's Chatham House. She blogs at www.rimeallaf.com/mosaics/index.php