WASHINGTON, 10 April2 2004 — Last Sunday, a UPI news story hit media wires all over the world. It was headlined, “Five Dead in Saudi Blast” and dated April 4, 2004. The article went on to say “Five people were killed in three explosions early Sunday at a residential housing compound in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.” The article also listed quotations from Al-Jazeera TV, a Saudi Interior Ministry spokesman, the SPA news agency and a US Embassy spokeswoman regarding the alleged bombing. But it didn’t happen.
Sunday evening and Monday morning had journalists and concerned people from all over the world calling Saudi Arabia and checking other news sources to see how much damage was done. They all learned that the reported bombing had not taken place at all. The damage, however, was not dead people and further disruption in the region, but to the image of Saudi Arabia and its stability and fight against terrorism. What is the real story here?
Upon checking with UPI, it was discovered that they had only a small crew on duty on Sunday which is normally a “down” news period. The UPI official in charge at that time, claimed that the article was taken from the Al-Jazeera web site on Sunday. When an attempt was made to access the alleged Al-Jazeera source the next day, it didn’t exist on the Al-Jazeera website nor in the Al— Jazeera archives from Sunday April 4, 2004. However, a similar story was posted on the Al-Jazzeera web site archives from Sunday Nov. 9, 2003, when a bombing did occur in Riyadh. UPI claims that this might have been the problem. A UPI spokesperson said, “I suspect Al-Jazeera’s computer ‘threw up’.”
So why make a big deal of this? Isn’t this just an honest mistake? Maybe or maybe not, but none of the news media that generated the article or carried the piece have retracted the story or apologized for the mistake. And a mistake of this nature often has far-reaching consequences.
For example, on March 24, the Bloomberg wire service reported, “The US Embassy in Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil producer, closed for almost an hour because of a report of an explosion in the capital, Riyadh, an embassy spokeswoman said.” The article continued, “The report turned out to be false and the embassy reopened.” Note, however, the phrase in the article, “the world’s largest oil producer.” In the aftermath of the actual May 2003 bombing in Saudi Arabia, various news services reported that the price of crude oil jumped up to 10 percent. And the AP reported that on Nov. 10, 2003, the day after another bombing in Saudi Arabia, the US stock market closed down with the Dow average losing more than 53 points. The AP in attributing at least a part of that stock market drop to the Saudi bombing quoted an investment analyst as saying that the bombing in Saudi Arabia was “somewhat disconcerting” and “People might try to assess how bad it can get or whether it portends anything further.” Accordingly, the stock market rises and falls and the price of oil does the same based on reports of bombings in Saudi Arabia. But the image of Saudi Arabia in the rest of the world is also greatly affected by these news stories.
In an article entitled “Methods of Media Manipulation,” Dr. Michael Parenti, an expert in media analysis, writes, “We are told by people in the media industry that news bias is unavoidable. Whatever distortions and inaccuracies that are found in the news are caused by deadline pressures, human misjudgment, limited print space, scarce air time, budgetary restraints and the difficulty of reducing a complex story into a concise report.” Parenti continues, “ I agree that these kinds of difficulties exist. Still, I would argue that the media’s misrepresentations are not merely the result of innocent error and everyday production problems.” And media misrepresentation of Saudi Arabia is legend. A Frontpage.com article by Chris Weikopf, who also writes for the Los Angeles Daily News, began: “Saudi-bashing has become the new sport in Washington and with good reason.” In other words Weikopf was not only saying that it’s OK to “bash” a whole nation and an entire nationality/ethnic group, but its also “good.” Put any other country or nationality/ethnic group in the “Saudi” word space and the writer would be accused of racism .
On Sunday, April 4, Crown Prince Abdullah’s foreign policy adviser, Adel Al Jubeir also appeared in front of the media. Al Jubeir was a guest on Wolf Blitzer’s CNN program, Late Edition. He was immediately questioned about a Newsweek Magazine story by Michael Isikoff that claimed that a federal investigation into the bank accounts of the Saudi Embassy in Washington, DC had identified more than $27 million in “suspicious” transactions. Jubeir stated that the story was absolutely not true. Jubeir continued that Isikoff had previously accused Saudi Omar Al Bayoumi of being a Saudi agent. Jubeir said, “The story played very big. People’s names were maligned. And it turns out that there was no ‘there’ there. The FBI investigation of Bayoumi concluded that he did not give money...And nor was he an agent of the Saudi government. But I don’t see Newsweek or Mr. Isikoff apologizing for the mistake they made.” Don’t expect Newsweek to retract their mistakes and don’t assume that UPI and their affiliate, the Washington Times, will apologize for the false information and print a correction. And if you are a potential foreign investor in Saudi Arabia or are watching the stock market or the price of oil, don’t worry. After all it was someone else’s mistake and there is “good reason” to “Saudi-bash” anyway.
— Dr. Michael Saba is the author of “The Armageddon Network” and is an international relations consultant.
