War and reconstruction in Iraq:
the ultimate test for international br
The war in Iraq presented international broadcasters with a huge
technical challenge: how to achieve maximum coverage in the
highest possible quality, and to deliver it very rapidly.
But in what terms were the fast-moving events of the war
portrayed? What kind of picture was presented to the world
audience? What effect has the flood of information and analysis
had?
Alan L. Heil
has been researching.
F
or international broadcasters
, the
potential to reach millions of
listeners, viewers and readers
profoundly affected by the war in
Iraq is somewhat akin, every day,
to competing for - and serving - a World Cup
or Superbowl audience multiplied several
times over. But it’s far more serious than a
contact sport. Every bit, every byte, every
frequency, and every satellite path is a vehicle
for added knowledge in the zillion-channel
multimedia world. There’s an unmatched thirst
for news and information about the conflict
and what will follow. Lives are at stake, as is
the international order of things.
Those who broadcast across borders confront
huge challenges never seen before. Those
cross-cultural information porters seek
audiences in an environment strikingly
different than during the last Gulf crisis and
war in 1990-1991. Consider:
The newfound influence of Arab reality
television in the Gulf region
The conflict in Iraq,
The Economist
notes, “is
the first-ever Arab war to be covered live [on
TV] and on satellite by Arabs, and Al-Jazeera,
financed by the Qatari government and staffed
with veterans from the now-defunct BBC Arabic
TV service, came prepared. No news-gathering
organization can match the number of
reporters and cameras that it has on the ground
in Iraq, and most western networks are at least
partially dependent on Al-Jazeera feeds from
Baghdad.” Early in the war, Jazeera estimated
it had 44 million viewers. Its images of Iraqi
civilian war casualties, repeated again and
again, are a new dimension — a clear
alternative to western media in what some
have called “the information war.” Al-Jazeera
exemplifies what to many Arab viewers is a
refreshing departure from the slavishly pro-
government video gazettes within most of their
countries a dozen years ago.
The accompanying proliferation in the Middle
East of a number of competitive indigenous
TV rivals to Western information sources
.
The genie is out of the bottle. The Saudi-
backed Arabic language Middle East
Broadcasting Centre in London preceded the
start-up of Jazeera by several years, and has
maintained a huge share of the viewership
in the Arab world - from Baghdad to
Casablanca. Other, more recent arrivals, some
of whose vivid TV war images also are flashed
via channels in both the Arab and western
worlds, include Abu Dhabi TV, Al-Arabiyah of
Dubai (an all-news subsidiary of MBC) and Al
Alam (a brand new Arabic language TV service
originating in Iran which is viewed easily in
Baghdad). As they embark on ambitious
television initiatives in the region, the
American and French governments must
reckon with this already crowded field.
The rise of the Internet and on-line
communications
A dozen years ago, the PC user population
was a fraction of what it is today. All principal
transnational public service broadcasters and
their worldwide commercial cousins such as
CNN have websites. These are of varying
quality. Many are constructing interactive
programmes or chat lines around events of
the day, and the best are listening, reading
and reacting to what they learn. In the words
of a Washington specialist in public
diplomacy: “The net is the future. That’s where
the investments should be.” PC ownership in
the Arab world was estimated recently at only
about two percent, so the Internet is a greater
factor elsewhere. But as the popularity of
Internet cafes in Cairo and Amman shows,
the user population in the region may grow
faster than expected. As the information
revolution accelerates, will the critical
faculties of media consumers be honed in this
age of plenty? There might be more channel
switching and website surfing by curious
The BBC’s
Richard Sambrook
audiences eager to compare sources and
arrive at their own conclusions, as Cairo
University Professor Amin suggests.
The incredible newsgathering speed and
flexibility new technologies have made possible
Retired U.S. war correspondent Peter Osnos
used to consider himself lucky when he got
his dispatches and film from the trenches in
Vietnam to the
Washington Post
in 24 hours.
Now, he says, “my son and other embedded
reporters in the 1
st
Marine Division are sitting
somewhere on the front line, chem suits pulled
over their heads, writing stories on laptops
that they’ll file to their papers’ websites over
satellite phones. For the moment, we’re all
transfixed.” In electronic media, immediacy
in picture and sound is even more striking. It
is enhanced by the presence of 600 journalists
embedded with frontline coalition forces and
those few who’ve remained behind in a heavily-
bombarded Baghdad.
BBC News Editor Richard Sambrook was
interviewed recently on the dilemmas posed
by war coverage. He told Tim Burt of the
Financial Times
that some frontline reports from
Iraq and the demands of “rolling” news have
increased the chances of inaccurate reporting.
“It’s too soon to tell the success of 24-hour
news,” he added. “This business of embedded
coverage and having journalists on the front
