Over 400 news professionals and executives gathered in Vilamoura, Portugal, in November 2004 for the third edition of the News Xchange conference. With media coverage of the Middle East in particular of the conflict in Iraq and of events in Israel and the occupied territories high on the agenda of every news organization, Arab media and safety of media workers in zones of conflict were two of the main topics. Participants in places as far apart as Doha, Beirut, Amman, Washington, London, and Paris, took part in the debates of the two-day conference via over 40 satellite link-ups ensured by the Eurovision network.
News Xchange 2004 opened with The Year in Pictures video report produced by APTN, followed by a keynote speech by HM King Abdullah of Jordan. Addressing delegates on a live link from Amman, King Abdullah stressed the importance of liberalizing the media in Jordan: We are enacting laws to restructure state media organizations and disengage the government from direct control. Laws have been drafted to liberalize the sector and to open the public airwaves to private TV and radio stations. In his speech and in answering questions from delegates, the king outlined a number of points around which the sessions debate was to develop. The sovereign paid tribute to the impact of Arab broadcast media which he described as a tremendously positive influence over the past several years. He stressed how dispassionate, knowledgeable reporting, fairness and credibility were essential on the part of Arab media if regional reform and peace are to succeed. He also emphasized the need for responsible journalists to deprive extremists of platforms and exposure.
King Abdullah also paid tribute to journalists and other media workers who died to tell the story.
Diversity
Western observers often fail to recognize the diversity of Arab media owing to a lack of knowledge of both the Arab world and language, several speakers noted. I feel very uncomfortable when I hear somebody saying, the western media because I dont know what we are talking about. If we are talking about the [British] print media you have the Sun and the Guardian and the Independent – its quite a diversity of views and treatments of information that we are receiving and the same thing applies in the Middle East and in every individual [Arabic] station, said Hosam El-Sokkari, head of the BBC World Services Arabic [radio] Service.
Abdallah Schleifer, director, Adham Centre for TV Journalism, Cairo, recalled how deeply Arab television journalism had changed in recent times: 14 years ago there was no such things as Arab TV journalism, it did not exist There was an honourable tradition in print journalism which goes back to the 19th century, but not of television journalism, he said, adding: There were news bulletins. A cameraman would go out and cover a minister opening a factory, or perhaps a president receiving a guest or a cabinet meeting with people sipping coffee and that was the beginning and the end of television journalism. There were no reporters, the reader would simply take wire copy from the state news organization which maybe or maybe did not coincide with the pictures we were seeing. Schleifer went on to describe the change introduced with the arrival of CNN International in the Middle East in 1991 which provided coverage of the Gulf war at the time and marked the introduction of satellite television in the region.
The launch of the Doha-based Aljazeera, following the 1998 collapse of BBC Arabic television, a joint venture with Orbit, a Saudi-owned company, marked a watershed for Arab media. Aljazeera has since come to embody pan-Arab TV channels in the western world and has been followed by a number of such channels. However, Aljazeeras relations with many Arab governments have not been easy over the years, it is still banned in Algeria, Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Tunisia. King Abdullah acknowledged this in his opening remarks: Weve had our good days and bad days with them [Aljazeera], we do close them down when they get to the point of being incorrect with their information, when they are inflammatory in creating hatred and distrust but that doesnt last for very long because we do believe in the freedom of the press, he told delegates.
Professionalism
Pan-Arab TV channels have come under a lot of criticism in western countries for allegedly offering platforms to extremists, airing tapes of Usamah bin Laden or executions of hostages. Such claims were rejected by several broadcasters, not least by Ahmed Al-Sheikh, from Aljazeera. This is how we feel about the tapes of Usamah bin Laden: we feel that we have a moral responsibility of showing to our audience what is happening in the so-called camp of evil, so we judge these tapes by this and accordingly we put what we feel is newsworthy on air, he said.
As for footage of executions: Never before have we shown any beheading tape we never showed these tapes, not a single frame. Its a policy, its a longstanding editorial policy of Aljazeera not to show these tapes, he stressed. A point reiterated by Nart Bouran, editor-in-chief, Abu Dhabi TV: Its a consistent policy we decided it was not for us to act as a mouthpiece for any of these organizations that are kidnapping and killing hostages, he told delegates. Ibrahim Mousawi, news director of the Lebanon-based pro-Hezbollah al-Manar channel, also claimed his channel was working under the calibre of the standards of professionalism You have to be smart enough to respect your audience we dont need to make a lot of propaganda to convince others of our cause, he said.
The Arab-Western divide regarding the treatment of video material was highlighted by the way NBC and Aljazeera reported the shooting of an insurgent by a US Marine in a mosque in Fallujah in mid-November. Delegates were shown the reports based on the same footage as broadcast by both NBC and Aljazeera. Asked why NBC had not shown the actual shooting, Bill Wheatley, vice president NBC News, replied: Generally speaking NBC doesnt show specific acts of violence if too graphic we think we properly informed people in the case of that report about what had happened. What we didnt do was show it in all its brutality and gruesomeness. It is not a question of bias, but one of taste about making a judgment about whats appropriate to show. Bill Wheatley also argued that NBC had placed the shooting in context: We made a very strong effort to give complete editorial information to the entire pool prior to the members using the pictures, he said.
Ahmed Al-Sheikh defended Aljazeeras decision to show the shooting. We are like NBC, we do not show gruesome scenes or pictures. But when we looked at the shots, first of all the shot was a medium-wide shot and was not showing the actual shooting in the head of the man. It was a medium-wide shot and in this case our editorial policy is that we can show these things, he explained. Al-Arabiyas position was identical to that of Aljazeera, according to Salah Negm from the Dubai-based channel.
The approach at the US government-funded al-Hurra channel was closer to NBC, not because we are based in Washington, but as a matter of taste said Mouafac Harb, director of news at the channel. What is key here is to get the story out, not what kind of shots we have used or not, he added. This quest for professionalism can be observed throughout the region, said Abdallah Schleifer: Everywhere I travel now, whether Doha or Dubai, everybody is talking about striving for professionalism and I think they are striving for it.
Ethics
However, can professionalism exist when many obstacles prevent proper reporting? Certain channels are banned from many countries, Aljazeera in particular, which has also been banned from Iraq for weeks. Furthermore reporting on certain issues, such as corruption and democratization, can be very difficult.
Session chair Emad El Din Adeeb asked his hosts: If Aljazeera can talk about corruption in countries like Egypt or Jordan, if al-Arabiya can talk about corruption in Sudan – can al-Jazeera talk about corruption in Qatar? Can al-Arabiya talk about it in Saudi Arabia? We are very good about being transparent in other Arab countries, but not transparent about the sponsors of our networks and we have to confess here that we are not one hundred per cent free doing our jobs. A point reinforced by Mohammed Gohar, managing director, Video CairoSat, Egypt: We have to admit that we cannot discuss our little problems like handling power or democracy or implementing the Sharia law and we are facing many difficulties discussing these problems. Like our friend who criticised the minister of culture in Egypt, and has now spent three years in prison. He went on to quip: So these are little problems that we suffer, but we do have full democracy in criticising Bush and Sharon!
Salah Negm, from al-Arabiya argued that a distinction had to be made between pan-Arab channels or satellite channels and local channels, the former dealing with issues of interest to 22 countries, such as Palestine and democratisation in general, but not going into specifics. This, he said, was the role of local television channels which are financed by these governments and which should represent the diversity of that society, talking about local corruption, democracy, elections, about raising taxes, and actually being the fourth estate for supervising all the functions of government. Mohammed Gohar highlighted a more disturbing approach. Answering a question as to why Arab channels had been reluctant to air footage of the tragedy in Darfour, Sudan, he replied: If in Darfour, a Muslim kills non-Muslims, then it doesnt really interest the Arabic media but if its vice versa, it will be a hit for them and they will take it. This confession shows that a number of Arab broadcast media still have some way to go to be fully professional.
Media with a mission?
This quest for professionalism on the part of Arab media is further held back by their tendency of seeing themselves as invested with a mission, a need to mobilize forces against occupation or corruption. A trend rejected by the BBCs Hosam El-Sokkari. Although funded by a grant-in-aid of the British government, the BBC is not under any pressure to be friendly towards British policies or the policies of any country friendly to the British government, he stressed. As regards mobilizing forces, I think there is a third way, in the BBC we dont see ourselves as a medium with a political message. We are a platform for debate
We dont see that our job is to mobilize forces or mobilize the streets against governments, he said.
Safety
In these troubled times media professionals have suffered an ever growing number of casualties. News Xchange has now become a major forum to discuss safety issues and the International News Safety Institute (INSI) held its annual general meeting on the eve of News Xchange for the second year in a row.
Chris Cramer, managing director CNN International and honorary president of INSI told delegates: The death toll is three times higher than that of international humanitarian workers… This has been arguably the most terrible year for our profession – after I sat here and told you last year it had been the most terrible year.
Reporting extensively from zones of conflict, such as Iraq or the occupied territories, Arab media have suffered very significant casualties. An issue highlighted by Chuck Lustig, from ABC news, who paid tribute to the employees of Arab networks who are doing the dirty work in Iraq. For that we all owe them a great deal of gratitude because as it gets more and more dangerous for westerners to go out in Iraq, it is your employees who are covering what is going on in the country today. And for that we owe you a great deal of thanks, he said.
The safety session looked at the danger faced by Arab journalists in Iraq, underlined by the killing of a large number of Arab media professionals by both sides as well as by the treatment inflicted to three Reuters and an NBC Arab staff arrested in Fallujah and later then abused and humiliated in various ways by US forces for several days. David Schlesinger, global managing editor for Reuters, regretted that no proper investigation of the circumstances was ever carried out by the Pentagon. US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs) Bryan Whitman said the Pentagon was thoroughly investigating every case of violence against journalists and noted that a war zone was always dangerous, but that the vast majority of journalists killed had not been embedded with US forces. A number of participants rejected this approach as indicating the Pentagons willingness to manage the news agenda through the embed system.
A chilling reminder that some groups of insurgents were determined to cow the media into submission was the warning posted on the al-Qala web site: We are swearing allegiance to God that we will reach all the media and news agencies that are not at least neutral in reporting news. We swear to God that we will hunt all the workers in these news agencies one after another and we will slaughter them like sheep if they stand beside the Americans and not broadcast the truth about the number of soldiers killed in Iraq. Their fate will be the same as al-Arabiya who used to call the Mujahideen terrorists. Seven people were killed and several wounded on 30 October when a car bomb went off outside Al-Arabiya offices in Baghdad.
The session also looked at a lesser known, but nevertheless very significant collateral damage of the media coverage of the war: the traumatic impact on media staff in newsrooms and archives of viewing footage of a gruesome nature, such as beheadings and the execution of hostages. Mark Brayne, of the Dart Centre Europe, outlined a number of measures to be taken by broadcasting organizations to help their staff cope with this relatively new issue.
The large number and quality of contributors to the Arabic media and safety sessions have ensured a remarkably frank and fruitful exchange of views and opinions which should contribute to a better understanding of the many challenges and opportunities facing Arab media and the risks faced by media professionals.
Text by Morand Fachot, EBU Communications Service
News Xchange, a not-for-profit conference underwritten by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), has the backing of the 72 members of the EBUs Eurovision News Exchange and of the 29 members of European News Exchange (ENEX), the cooperative of commercial broadcasters. It is also supported by the major international broadcast news agencies and networks.
The European Broadcasting Union organizes Hostile Environment Safety Training (HEST) courses designed by journalists and developed by front-line media professionals and European special forces to raise journalists awareness and prepare them for hostile environments.
For details see: http://www.ebu.ch/ebu-training/bestw/events/05HEST/HEST2005_flyer.pdf
News Xchange:
http://www.Newsxchange.org
Eurovision:
http://www.eurovision.net
EBU: http://www.ebu.ch
INSI http://www.newssafety.com
Dart Centre Europe: http://www.dartcenter.org/europe/