US Media at 'All-Time Low'; Acting As 'Cheerleaders' for War
Arabic-language media have an unprecedented chance to take over as the
world's premier news source because trust in their US counterparts plummeted
following their "shameful coverage" of the war in Iraq, a conference heard
today.
The US media reached an "all-time low" in failing to reflect public opinion
and Americans' desire for trusted information, instead acting as a
"cheerleader" for war, said Amy Goodman, the executive producer and host of
US TV and radio news show Democracy Now!, at a news forum organised by
al-Jazeera.
Newsweek's Paris bureau chief, Christopher Dickey, said the US media were
dying because of cutbacks and weren't interested in covering the world
outside America.
But other delegates questioned whether Arabic media were up to the
challenge.
"The US media have done a shameful job of reporting on the Arab world. With
the rise of al-Jazeera and independent media there is a chance for the Arab
media to react back, but instead what we get is a clash," said Ethan
Zuckerman, the co-founder of Global Voices Online and research fellow at the
Berkman Centre for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School.
"I would urge everyone involved with new Arabic media not just to report on
this [Arabic] world more fairly and accurately, but to report on the whole
world more fairly and accurately. I challenge al-Jazeera and the new Arabic
media players to do a better job that the US in covering the rest of the
world," he said.
Ms Goodman said in the run-up to the Iraq war a study of NBC, CBS, ABC and
PBS newscasts over a fortnight recorded 393 interviews on the conflict, of
which only three reported the anti-war movement.
"This is a media cheerleading for war and does not represent mainstream
opinion in the US," she added.
Ms Goodman said she believed the policy of embedding reporters with
coalition forces was "a total failure for independent journalism ... western
audiences need to see the other side of the story - from communities and
hospitals".
"If people in the US had a true picture of war - dead babies, women with
their legs blown off, dead and dying soldiers - they would say 'no'," she
said.
"There is nothing more important than the media - it is more powerful than
any bomb or missile and we have to take it back ... we need a media that is
independent and honestly showing us the images, the hell, ugliness and
brutality of war, not selling us war."
Mr Dickey, the Middle East regional editor and Paris bureau chief at
Newsweek magazine, said US media were "dying".
"After 25 years as a foreign correspondent I know what the US wants from the
rest of the world: to forget about it."
"There's this idea that the US media is controlling the agenda. In fact the
US media is dying. Resources, money and staff are being cut back. Twenty
years ago Newsweek had 25 staff in Paris, today it has one: me," said Mr
Dickey.
He added that the gap between what the US and Arabic media reports was
widening, with American reports being "all about victory and the Arabic
being all about victims".
Faisal al-Kasim, host of al-Jazeera's The Opposite Direction show, said that
as a result of a perceived failure of western media to reflect the full
picture more people were turning to Arabic media.
"Even Arabs who live in the west are giving up watching western networks and
tuning to Arabic networks instead," Mr al-Kasim said.
However, concerns were aired at today's conference about the ability of the
Arabic media to operate independently.
Lawrence Pintak, a director of the Adham Centre for Electronic Journalism
and a former CBS foreign correspondent, urged delegates against thinking
that Arabic media were allowed the freedoms to which western journalists
were accustomed.
"I am concerned that someone from the US or Europe who doesn't know the
Arabic world will think that all is goodness and light when we know that is
not the case," he said, citing the beating of journalists during the
Egyptian elections and the detention of journalists in Yemen and Morocco.
However, Mr Pintak there was a "great sense of possibility" about journalism
in the Arabic world, likening it to the interest in the profession in the US
following Watergate.
Concerns were also aired about the ability of al-Jazeera's soon-to-launch
English language station, al-Jazeera International, to reproduce the success
of its main Arabic network across the world.
"We might as well buy a new channel in the US," Mahmud Shammam, the bureau
chief for the Dar Al Watan newspaper and Newsweek Arabic.
"[Al-Jazeera International] will not have Arabic characteristics and that's
a big challenge."
Hugh Miles, a journalist and United Nations media consultant, said
al-Jazeera was massively popular in north Africa but because conspiracy
theories about its agenda were rife, the new English-language channel would
be watched very carefully.
"If al-Jazeera International is perceived to be biased or insensitive to
Islam - on the Danish cartoon issues for example - there will be a loss of
faith in the al-Jazeera brand," he said.
"The Arabic service has done a tremendous job in establishing al-Jazeera as
a trusted name. It would be a terrible shame to see that image jeopardised."
But the director of al-Jazeera's research centre, Mostefa Souag, attempted
to allay fears about the new channel, saying the network's managing
director, Wadah Khanfar, has confirmed its editorial stance "will not be far
away" from its sister station.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
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