AMMAN, 9 April 2004 — The disparity between Arab and US media is stark; the former is overly emotional and reactive, while the latter relies greatly on misrepresentations and presupposed assumptions, which often turn to be false or highly exaggerated. In the final analysis, however, both offer a similar product: Disconcerting news coverage that feeds on one’s own assertion and totally denies the other.
Star reporter of ABC News, Peter Jennings, whom I must admit is one of the most engaging in mainstream American media, hesitates little when he uses the term “us” to refer to “coalition forces” in Iraq. He did so during a recent interview on CNN’s Larry King Live.
Not that “us” is a new phenomenon in American journalism. For many years, Thomas Friedman of the New York Times has approached the sensitive subject of US foreign policy in the Middle East in the same manner a defense strategist for a Pentagon think-tank would.
The argument has been made that the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 narrowed the gap between US media and the official interpretation of events. But the gap has always been narrow, according to American intellectual Noam Chomsky, thanks to what he dubbed the five “flaks” of the mass media in the United States. An important flak that keeps the mainstream media in line is self-censorship. Another is the excessive reliance on government narration for sourcing news.
The second “control mechanism” in particular has never been so evident like the March 2003 war on Iraq; not only that “embedded” journalists thrust into Baghdad on the back of a tank, but government and retired Defense Department “experts” claimed control over the newsroom as well. There seemed to be only one side to the story, and those who dared defy that implicit arrangement, like Peter Arnett, were insolently sacked.
Media in the Arab world adheres to a different control mechanism.
Traditionally, the media in most Arab countries has been used, almost exclusively, to glorify the ruling elite and to discredit its foes. Genuine criticism of any country’s official policies has therefore been muted or confined to controlled criticism, an aimless form of critique whose objective is to defuse Arab people’s fury and pacify the need for action.
As a counter move, the silenced and marginalized opposition established what they perceived as alternative or progressive media, which in some strange way was fashioned after the official media, this time touting the opposition and discrediting everyone else.
Discussing the role of progressive media in the United States, author and media critic Norman Solomon wrote: “What progressive media movement should strive for is a kind of media ecology that recognizes and promotes authentic diversity.”
Solomon’s words should also apply to progressive media “wanna-bes” in the Arab world as well, since such media is responsible for providing an antidote for the self-congratulating and pompous official account. Largely, however, this has not been the case.
Iraq is the obvious example.
Following the US invasion of Iraq and the toppling of the Saddam Hussein government, Iraqi streets and sidewalks have been dotted with newspapers and magazines. Each represents an interest — business, political, religious or ideological— each exalting a person, a grouping, or a political agenda.
Despite the seemingly chaotic structure of the Iraqi media following the fall of Baghdad, the purpose and boundaries of controlled criticism in the Iraqi press is well defined. Foremost, such “freedom of the press” strengthens the US occupying authority’s argument that all in all Iraq is better off without Saddam. While many Iraqis cannot find safety or cannot secure their daily bread, they are indulged with scores of newspapers propagating journalism similar in style to that under the former government, asserting the self and denying the other.
In the Arab world today there is a surge of media outlets with styles and presentations that compare to the most impressive in the United States. With the exception of a few, however, they might possess the eye-catching platform and the dazzling images but lack credibility or substance, or both.
Much of what Arab media currently offers is a poor attempt to duplicate mostly Western media outlets, leaving little room for authentic Arab media interpretation. True, one must learn from and adapt to cutting-edge tactics used by more advanced media, but adopting the message itself is self-defeating.
The many years of controlled press in the Arab world have produced two equally alarming phenomena. One is restrictive that champions the viewpoint of the authority, and another is overtly impulsive that discounts the authority and offers itself as the only viable alternative.
Although it may seem that Arab media is slowly breaking free from the grip of the official circle, the relationship between the media and authority in the Arab world remains the same.
With the added factor of the direct American occupation of Iraq, those who represent authority are gaining a new member. Once again, Arab media is back to its typical role, either touting the occupiers and discrediting Saddam, or decrying the latter in a directionless patriotic expression. In the midst, objective reporting suffers as the integrity of the journalist concedes to the more urgent need for vindication.
Cracking the media wall in the US, according to Solomon, “involves bringing down the institutional wall that soundproofs much of the media world.” For Solomon, however, there is a First Amendment that serves as a backdrop to his demands for a more democratic discourse. In the Arab world, such a backdrop is absent. All that remains to empower progressive Arab media is a realization of its own deficiency resulting from siding with the official circle or from its overstated attempt to dissociate itself from it.
With such a realization, a change in the course becomes imperative. Without it, history shall repeat itself, this time with new players: US funded Al-Hurra TV, official newspapers disguised as private and such.
— Ramzy Baroud is a Palestinian-American journalist.
