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By
William A. Rugh
In the United
States since 9/11 it has been fashionable to criticize Arab
satellite television, especially Al Jazeera, for being hopelessly
biased and unfairly hostile to America. A great deal of the
criticism comes from people who do not understand Arabic and
have never watched Arab satellite TV, but they have heard from
others (many of whom also get their information second hand)
that Arab TV is a major cause of America’s current image
problem abroad.
That stereotype
does not stand up to close scrutiny. It is true that instances
of misinformation and unfair criticism of the United States
occur on Arab television, but a fair evaluation would give a
more nuanced and balanced picture.
For starters,
the tendency to blame Arab TV for most of America’s poor
image problems in the Arab world ignores the fact that opinion
polls taken in Europe and Asia show respect for America is also
very low there, and people in those areas don’t watch
Arab TV. Moreover, Zogby polls taken in the Arab world show
that Arab television viewers who regularly watch Arab satellite
TV tend to have a more favorable opinion of America, not less,
than those who do not watch it. This probably is due to the
fact that those TV channels carry not only political programs
that appeal to Arab nationalist and patriotic feelings, but
they also carry material from American commercial networks that
may, on balance, present aspects of the United States that Arabs
like.
Clearly,
Arab TV is different from American television, and the differences
help create negative impressions in America about Arab television.
Let us look first at its handling of news.
First, at
least some of what Americans regard as deliberately and unfairly
hostile can be accounted for by what I call the cultural bias
factor that applies to every society. In every country, television
and other media are shaped by the political, social, cultural,
and historic environment in which they function. Media everywhere
are to some extent market driven; in other words, TV editors
and reporters give the viewers what they want. This applies
especially to the selection of news. For example in reporting
on Iraq, it is natural that Arab TV will focus on what is happening
to Iraqis while American TV is focusing on what is happening
to Americans. If one American is killed in Baghdad, that is
bigger news in America than the death of one Iraqi, and conversely
American casualties will get less Arab TV coverage than Iraqi
ones.
Secondly,
it is traditional practice in America to avoid showing close-ups
of dead and dying people, but many Arab TV channels do not hesitate
to show such footage, and when they do show Iraqis who have
been injured or killed by US forces, Americans tend to regard
that as an editorial decision deliberately intended to show
America in a bad light. American TV editors have even complied
with the Bush administration’s request not to show caskets
of dead Americans returning from Iraq, on the grounds that such
footage is inappropriate.
Third, many of the differences between American and Arab television
simply reflect the different environments in which they operate.
For example, American TV journalists tend to regard themselves
as representing institutions that must be constant critics of
the government, as guardians of the public’s right to
know the “truth,” which they suspect the government
often wants to hide or distort. This adversarial relationship
is different from the relationship that exists in many Arab
countries where television is owned and operated primarily by
the government, and TV personnel are government employees. Because
of that tradition, many journalists feel under some constraints
in criticizing their government, and may practice self-censorship
as a form of self-protection.
Fourth,
in addition to any self-censorship created by the employer-employee
relationship of the reporter or editor, there are in fact provisions
in the law in most Arab countries that allow the government
to restrict the freedom of TV reporters and editors, as well
as print media journalists. Americans who advocate more democracy
in the Arab world (and there are many such voices now) are fond
of calling for greater adherence to the “rule of law”
in that region. The term “rule of law” usually means
that a country is not ruled in an arbitrary fashion by a dictator
who does what he wants, but that there is a set of laws that
have been promulgated that even the ruler must abide by. But
anyone who looks closely at media laws in the Arab world, will
find that in most Arab states there are detailed provisions
in the law that allow the government to take steps against journalists
in television and other media that restricts their freedom.
These restrictions on freedom tend to be greater than any that
exist in the United States.
For example,
laws in most Arab countries prohibit journalists from criticizing
the head of state or even the head of a friendly foreign state.
It is also typical that these laws contain language that prohibits
journalists from inciting violence or civil unrest, or “disrupting
social peace” or “public order”; and there
is often language in the law about the media’s responsibility
to “protect the general welfare” or not to “harm
national dignity.” Those phrases are, however, very vague
and ambiguous, allowing for interpretation in different ways,
so that a strong government can use them to crack down on journalists
they dislike.
Western
journalistic associations that monitor “press freedom”
often cite cases of Arab journalists who have been sent to jail
for what they wrote as examples of the lack of press freedom.
From a Western point of view that makes sense, but these examples
often ignore that the government was using the existing law
and the court system rather than extra-legal measures outside
the courts. Even the actions taken by many Arab governments
to suspend operations of Al Jazeera and other news bureaus may
be based on existing law, but outsider criticism usually ignores
that. Critics will argue nevertheless that the media laws need
to be changed in order to protect freedom better.
A fifth
difference is financing, since American television is funded
almost entirely by advertising, and Arab TV is not dependent
on commercials. Nearly all Arab satellite TV channels are subsidized
one way or another, because they cannot survive on advertising
revenue alone. This is unlikely to change any time soon, for
reasons related to the economy and advertising habits generally.
It will be interesting to see what happens with al Jazeera if
it is in fact “privatized,” as has been discussed,
because despite the expectation when it was established in 1996
that it would be self-sustaining financially in five years,
that did not happen. If it is privatized and the new owner is
disinclined to lose money, will he seek to attract more advertising
by changing the content so that it is not so annoying to so
many Arab governments?
These comments
about the way Arab television handles the news are general observations,
and they are not intended to excuse the shortcomings that do
occur. Some news presenters seem to go out of their way to give
a negative spin to news about America, and at least one important
channel, Hizbullah’s Al Manar TV, is consistently hostile
to America, making no effort to be balanced on matters relating
to the United States. But they are not the norm.
What about
political talk shows, debates and call-in programs on Arab TV?
Al Jazeera, for example, has attracted a large viewing audience
partly because of such programs and they help it maintain its
top position. These programs have dealt with a wide range of
politically hot and socially and culturally sensitive topics
like religion, government oppression and incompetence, poverty,
and women’s rights, in ways that are relatively new. American
TV of course also presents political debate and breaks some
taboos. But some of the discussion programs on Al Jazeera can
be fairly criticized for presenting only extreme views and neglecting
the more reasoned and sober middle, which is entertaining, but
misses opportunities to fully inform and educate the public.
Others, like Abu Dhabi TV, tend to be more balanced and responsible.
Also, Arab
television has almost none of the “investigative reporting”
such as we see on American TV in programs like 60 Minutes
on CBS. To prepare for those programs, journalists do a
great deal of background work to look into a controversial issue,
or they uncover a story that has been neglected, and they interview
all sides. The result often makes the government or a corporation
look bad, and the viewers are given insights that they otherwise
would not have had. One reason Arab TV channels do very little
of that kind of programming is that the political atmosphere
currently doesn’t allow it. Another is the cost in time
and money; it is easier and less expensive to put on a debate
between two or three people in a studio as Al Jazeera and other
Arab channels do. Perhaps they will also one day do more investigative
reporting that will help educate the public.
There are,
therefore, problems with Arab satellite TV, both in news presentation
and in the political talk shows. But it seems clear that since
it emerged in the 1990s, it has in fact brought about significant
and even revolutionary changes have taken place in Arab television.
On balance, most of these changes have been in the direction
of more freedom and independence for TV reporters and editors,
and much more lively and interesting programs for the Arab TV
viewing audience. Although I am not part of Arab society, when
I watch Arab television as an outsider, I am impressed by the
fact that many channels carry excellent news coverage much of
the time, given the conditions mentioned above that news editors
and reporters have a cultural bias and seek to present what
Arab viewers want. Aside from the news programs, the discussion
and call-in shows also deal with politically and culturally
sensitive issues that were taboo prior to the advent of Arab
satellite TV.
Moreover,
the popular game shows that ask questions about Arab history,
society, and culture, demonstrate that people all over the Arab
world, from Casablanca to Baghdad, have a common body of knowledge
and awareness that unites them culturally. This shared body
of knowledge is parallel to what we see in American television
where producers of game shows can assume people from New York
to San Francisco know the same facts. But America is one country
and Arab satellite TV covers many countries who shared some
basic knowledge about themselves. (Game shows in India or Australia
are not intelligible to most Americans, despite the fact that
they are in English.)
So it would
be useful if Americans took a more careful, comprehensive, and
dispassionate look at Arab satellite television. They need to
understand that if it seems different, it was never intended
to be just like ours, and it never will be. Programs sometimes
cross the line of fairness, or lack professionalism, but it
seems to me that only a relatively small portion of its content
is deliberately anti-American, as some contend.
William A. Rugh was a US Foreign
Service Officer 1964-1995, serving in Washington and at seven
Middle Eastern diplomatic posts including public affairs officer
in Saudi Arabia and Egypt. From 1995 until 2003 he was president
and CEO of AMIDEAST and he is currently an associate of Georgetown’s
Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, and adjunct scholar at
the Middle East Institute, a trustee of the American University
in Cairo and a board member at AMIDEAST. Rugh holds a PhD in
political science from Columbia University and has taught graduate
level courses on public diplomacy and US policy in the Middle
East. He is the author of Arab Mass Media and editor
of Engaging with the Arab and Islamic Worlds Through Public
Diplomacy: A Report and Action Recommendations. He also
serves on the editorial board of TBS.
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