Edition 15 Volume 2 - April 22, 2004
The new media era
• The impact outside the Middle East -
byJane Perlez
Arab based television stations are not very popular in Indonesia, the most populous Muslim country in the world.
• A revolutionary impact -
a conversation withMohammed El Nawawy
Al Jazeera has brought the public discourse to another level.
• A new look to Arab news -
byMuafac Harb
Alhurra has made the media in the Middle East turn a critical lens onto itself.
• A door opened -
byAbeer Mishkhas
What continued to attract viewers was that they felt the importance of their own feedback.
The impact outside the Middle East
by Jane Perlez One of the most interesting aspects of a visit to a radical Islamic pesantren in Indonesia was the perception of the students about the rest of the world.
They had very definite ideas. Yet they were seemingly stuck in the middle of nowhere--on the edge of the forests of the province of Kalimantan to be precise. Television was banned at the school, and there was not a satellite antenna in sight. Computers were for the school authorities only.
During my visit to the pesantren, which like the Pakistani madrasas is headed by a charismatic leader, one of the brightest students, Muhammad Fadhil, confided that “I know from very deep in my heart, the United States is evil.” This I understood as a commonplace attitude that could have come from anywhere: teachers, the mosque, television news when the boys sneaked a look. But then Muhammad asked some very particular questions: “Why is Milosevic a violator of human rights, but Ariel Sharon is not?” Sharon, he went on, “killed a lot of people when he was head of the Israeli Army.” Why, asked Muhammad, was “George Soros, the Hungarian Jew, such a rich man?”
When I asked Muhammad, 16, where he got his information, he replied with one word: Sabili. I had seen Sabili, a slim magazine about the size of the American edition of Reader’s Digest, in the homes of several of the school’s staff. Indeed, weekly editions of Sabili were about the only printed material in many of the homes. Sabili, a magazine that specializes in articles about radical Islam, is distributed outside mosques in the main cities of Indonesia every Friday.
Where does Sabili get its articles? Mainly from the internet. Editors at Sabili download articles from a variety of radical Islamic websites, translate them into Indonesian, and illustrate them. Similarly, the pesantren in Kalimantan, which belongs to a network called Hidayatullah, subscribes to a magazine established by the network for distribution at the schools and elsewhere. The magazine, Hidayatullah, and its associated website, also take articles from the internet.
My point in talking so much about these small magazines is to show that it is not only satellite television, and the powerful all-news stations like Al Jazeera and al Arabiya, that make an impact in the Islamic world outside the Middle East.
In fact, these Arab-based television stations are not very popular in Indonesia, the most populous Muslim country in the world.
Before I get into the impact of satellite television from the Middle East, a contextual word about Indonesia. Most people here practice an inclusive kind of Islam that in some parts still embraces bits of leftover Hinduism and retains hints of Sufism. An extremist group, Jemaah Islamiyah, which has links to al Qaeda, was responsible for the Bali bombing in October 2002 that killed 202 people, most of them foreign holidaymakers; it does not enjoy widespread support. Other small groups of militants, including Laskar Jihad, which was involved in the killing of Christians in the Molucca Islands, have also surfaced but at the moment appear to be lying low.
Why are the Arab satellite news broadcasts not so popular? First, most Indonesians cannot understand Arabic, and the subtitles or simultaneous translations in Indonesian don't seem to add appeal. Second, Al Jazeera appears on cable, but cable has very limited viewership here.
During the American invasion of Iraq, Al Jazeera appeared from midnight to 4 am--hardly primetime--on one of the popular earth channels. The number of viewers for Al Jazeera was quite high during that period. Indonesians, who were of course utterly opposed to the war, appreciated seeing the war from the Arabic point of view. Certainly the Indonesian extremist groups got succor from the pictures of American troops invading an Arab nation. But once the war was over, ratings fell, and the station, TV-7, let the contract drop.
The rough equivalent in Indonesia of the coffee shops in the Middle East where men gather, and where a television set is often carrying news, is the rural village hall. Indonesians are not fiendishly interested in the politics of their own country, and international news is of even less interest. In the halls, where people gather in the evenings, the popular fare is entertainment, chiefly soap operas made in Indonesia. American programs do not dominate television, but the Indonesians love to make their own versions of such shows as "American Idol," "Candid Camera" and "Samantha the Teenage Witch."
Even in Kalimantan, at the strict Hidayatullah school, the boys were well aware of American culture. Muhammad said he often sneaked off the campus to go to the village internet cafe. There he would log onto the Laskar Jihad site where there are often gory pictures of Indonesian militants striking against Christians. But he also logged onto sites with some of the icons of American popular culture. He had no hesitation in naming Britney Spears as his favorite actress, and Clint Mathis, the soccer star, as his favorite American sportsman.-Published 22/4/2004©bitterlemons-international
Jane Perlez is The New York Times bureau chief in Jakarta, Indonesia.
A revolutionary impact
a conversation with Mohammed El NawawyBI: What was new about Al Jazeera and how did it change media in the region?
El Nawawy: There is no question that Al Jazeera has revolutionized the Arab media scene in a very drastic way. Before, the Arab people were discussing all kinds of issues, but behind closed doors. Now, Al Jazeera has brought the public discourse to another level.
BI: There seem to be several perspectives on Al Jazeera's impact on democracy building. One is that satellite television news promotes democracy through public debate; another is that it actually diverts the frustrations of the Arab public away from their governments and into television format.
El Nawawy: The role of the media in mobilizing democracy is a very important issue. The idea is that these debates that people watch on television now may lead to action. I tend to think that even if we don't see action now, it is still a very healthy phenomenon to see these kinds of debates on Arabic television--you have to understand that the Arab peoples have not had any kind of experience in the free marketplace of ideas.
Whether this will translate into political action or not, I think that because there is not a vibrant political atmosphere in the Arab world, these Arab networks have made up for this. We are seeing today demonstrations in the Arab street and more pressure on their governments--people in all corners of the world going to the streets and demanding that these governments do something.
BI: The channel, when it was quite young, had to make some serious ethical decisions. How would you assess the results?
El Nawawy: Al Jazeera faced several challenges before the airing of the bin Ladin tapes; from the time of its inception in 1996, it had angered all the Arab governments.
However, its international fame was fixed by its airing of the Bin Ladin tapes and also by its coverage in Afghanistan. This exposed its reporters to dealing with conflicts on an international level, not just a regional level. Al Jazeera has had to make many adjustments to become a global satellite network and not just a regional network.
BI: Tell us more about the relationship between Al Jazeera and other regional governments.
El Nawawy: Based on research for our book, more than 450 official complaints had been filed with the station before September 11. The problem is that [the officials filing the complaints] do not differentiate between the network and the official government line. They are used to having tight control over the broadcast media and it was beyond their imagination to have all these courageous talks shows with no government agenda. What Al Jazeera has been trying to explain to these officials is that it is doing this for the sake of the public and that to appease this or that leader will not result in any credible reporting.
BI: How has Qatar's government managed to stay out of this debate?
El Nawawy: I think you really have to commend the amir for not only launching the network, but not closing it down. Qatar is a small country and has been subject to pressures from many regimes, especially the Saudi regime. But I also think that Al Jazeera has put Qatar on the map. We joke in our book that Al Jazeera is the country that has Qatar as its capital.
BI: What about the network's relationship with the US government?
El Nawawy: I talked with a spokesman from the State Department before the September 11 events and he told me that he had nothing but admiration for Al Jazeera as a truly independent and free network.
This position changed 180 degrees after September 11, the airing of the Bin Ladin tapes, the turn of events in Afghanistan, the coverage of the American POWs in Iraq and coverage of the civilian casualties in Iraq. All this has created antagonism between US officials and the station.
Many of Al Jazeera's journalists were trained in the West and are now applying those journalistic standards of freedom of expression. The question is more about having a different perspective. People are bound to have perspectives and there is no way to be 100 percent objective. We coined a term in our book, "contextual objectivity." We don't think that having a perspective should be at the expense of presenting all sides to the story.
BI: Do you think that Alhurra, the US government Arabic language satellite channel, can compete?
El Nawawy: I have not watched Alhurra, but I am definitely supportive of any attempt to bridge the gap between the United States and the Arab Middle East.
Having said that, based on experience with Radio Sawa [the US government Arabic radio station], I think Arabs viewed Radio Sawa as a propagandistic attempt made though entertainment, and will likely see Alhurra the same way--especially that it is sponsored by a western government.
Given the negative feeling towards the United States in the Arab world--due to what is happening in the Palestinian territories, and what is happening in Iraq--we would be kidding ourselves that launching Radio Sawa and Alhurra and Hi Magazine are going to be by themselves successful at changing the Arab image of American foreign policy.
BI: What mistakes do you think Al Jazeera has made?
El Nawawy: From the beginning, they definitely should have delved more into Qatari domestic politics, so they wouldn't have opened the door to people who criticized them for criticizing other regimes. This has started to change, but there is room for improvement on this front. Some people think that Qatar just doesn't have much going on, but I say let the public decide.
The other thing that I would say is that launching the English website was a very good thing, but they could have made more precautions and not taken so long to relaunch the website after it was hacked during the Iraq war.
Also, sometimes I watch programs on Al Jazeera like "The Opposite Direction" and feel that, while I have great respect for them, the middle ground is somewhat absent. They present extremes. The middle ground would help sometimes in bridging the discussions.
BI: Al Jazeera is getting a lot of flak for its reporting on the recent Iraqi uprising and human rights abuses. Could you comment on that?
El Nawawy: The fact that the United States has shut down three Iraqi newspapers and on a couple of occasions banned Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya from covering events has a very negative message. The United States is talking about how they want to make Iraq a model for democracy, and then it is closing down newspapers just because they happen to say things that do not appeal to the United States' perspective. That is not acceptable.
To every ten American soldiers that are killed, there are 30 or 40 Iraqis killed. One side is not more important than the other, but the Arab reporters are reporting the facts on the ground. They are doing this in tough conditions and risking their lives to get the story.-Published 22/4/2004©bitterlemons-international.org
Mohammed El Nawawy recently coauthored Al-Jazeera: How the Free Arab News Network Scooped the World and Changed the Middle East. He teaches journalism at Stonehill College in Massachusetts and has also written a book on reporting about the Israeli-Egyptian peace agreements.
A new look to Arab news
by Muafac HarbThere is something very important to be said about competition, especially within the media. With the onslaught of cable and satellite networks in the United States, Americans can easily watch a news story on four or five different channels, to ensure they get a balanced and accurate idea of what is going on in the world and filter through any biases, whether real or imagined.
That is essentially the idea behind Alhurra (Arabic for “Free One”), the latest Arabic-language news and information channel to come to the Middle East: to present factual and accurate reporting to viewers in the 22 Arab countries we reach, thereby providing them with a fresh perspective of the news that affects them. Once people have a better understanding of the world around them, they become part of the global debate. Headquartered outside of Washington, DC, Alhurra supplies context and background to the headlines, with bureaus throughout the Middle East. In the short time we have been on the air, we have covered a variety of topics, from human rights to political upheaval; Alhurra has been there for every major event in the region. We are also the most technologically advanced television station to date, which allows us the opportunity to bring news reports from all over the world and give viewers a global perspective.
It is incredible to work in this state of the art newsroom, but the heart and soul of Alhurra is the staff. A majority of the journalists that have joined Alhurra have moved to the United States from the Middle East, many leaving their homes and families to have the opportunity to report the news without government influence. There is a camaraderie among the staff here and around the world. We know we can make a difference, but only if we inform and engage our viewers.
We are not like the typical news channels, because we entertain as well as enlighten. In addition to its nightly hour-long newscasts and round-the-clock news updates, Alhurra offers audiences hard-hitting talk shows and roundtable discussions, such as “Free Hour” and “All Directions,” providing fresh perspectives of the headlines with the newsmakers of the day. Viewers can also watch international award-winning documentaries, as well as programs on fitness, technology, fashion, entertainment news and sports.
As anyone in the region knows, the Arab press went out of its way to denounce Alhurra before it even launched. There was a theme in all of the Arab media articles that Alhurra would just reiterate US government propaganda, but that could not be further from the truth. Our mandate and mission, issued by the US government, is to report accurately, even if this results in criticizing the current administration. This is a new concept to many state-funded Arab media outlets that take direction from their own government entities. It is not surprising they attacked us from the onset; we represented everything they are trying to suppress. If we were not a threat, why would they even comment about us?
The media reaction to Alhurra has also brought about debate, as the more moderate journalists in the region ask why there were such harsh attacks. Alhurra has made the media in the Middle East turn a critical lens onto itself. Although this was not the immediate goal when Alhurra was launched, it is consistent with this undertaking, to bring forth a fresh perspective of the news.
However, the attention that has been brought to the channel by the Arab media has also brought in viewers. We have received numerous emails from the Middle East, thanking us for Alhurra and praising our objective reporting. This brings us back to the original mission of Alhurra, to provide Arabic-speaking viewers an alternative to the traditional news reports they have endured.
Alhurra is not on the air to say something is right or wrong; that is not the job of a journalist. We are here to give audiences another viewpoint, and whether they use Alhurra as their sole source of news or in combination with others, we have accomplished our goal. We are competitors of Al Jazeera and Al Arabia, and any media outlet that reports to the Middle East for that matter. With a new kid in the sandbox, you are bound to stir up a little dust.- Published 22/4/2004©bitterlemons-international
Muafac Harb is director of network news at Alhurra and Radio Sawa.
A door opened
by Abeer MishkhasSince the late 90s, satellite television has dominated the information scene in the Middle East. From their earliest days, these satellite channels promised the public a margin of freedom of expression that was unprecedented on localized channels. The Qatari news channel Al Jazeera ruled households with its continuous news coverage, its relative freedom from censorship and the opportunities it offered viewers to participate in its talk shows.
Now, almost 70 percent of Gulf Arabs get their news from satellite TV. The number of new channels popping up is almost overwhelming. Competition is heated between the news channels and increasingly additional channels appear, offering more coverage and promising viewers more objectivity.
To an audience used to state-owned TV with its many restrictions and censored news, the advent of these channels was a door opened on the world. Viewers in the Arab world became more in tune with each other’s problems, which strengthened the concept of Arabism or a shared Arab identity. Through the various talk shows aired daily on these channels, the public was able to voice their opinions on all sorts of matters, even those subjects deemed taboo in their own countries.
Due to the novelty of the experience, there were some drawbacks. For one, some of the public could not understand the concept of a public debate; there were always people attacking others and asking that views be censored. But in general, practice has proven that what people in the Middle East needed most was to speak out and know more.
Some channels managed to influence general opinion, using causes such as the Palestinian intifada, the war on Iraq, and so on. Objectivity sometimes fell victim, too, since the programming was incessantly pointing audiences in directions supported by the broadcasters. But what continued to attract viewers was that they felt the importance of their own feedback.
Not all channels were dedicated to news coverage; many were purely after entertainment. The Lebanese channels, LBC and Future, introduced the "Lebanese phenomenon" to the Arab world as a whole. The Arab public has always been fascinated by Lebanon, and after the end of its civil war, there was a surge in interest in this country. So with the introduction of Lebanese satellite channels, new concepts of entertainment were introduced that challenged Egypt's dominance in the entertainment world. The public's attachment to these Lebanese channels grew so much that other Arab channels started to imitate them.
Music channels invaded the airspace with all sorts of video clips that eventually drew an angry response from viewers in the region; the channels were too closely following the European and American music video culture, critics said. Though many frown upon this trend, it appears to have huge popularity among younger generations, creating a hip wave of young Arabs who are fascinated by the western world and happy to watch an Arabic version of MTV.
Globalization further illustrated itself in the Arabization of American and European programs, beginning with the Arabic version of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" avidly watched in Arab homes, to the latest craze of reality television. Reality TV programs started shyly with “Ala al Hawa Sawa,” which aired 24 hours a day and depicted girls seeking husbands living out their lives day in and day out, as they selected suitable grooms from callers. The program was not that popular and hence did not attract much negative attention. But with the start of the Arabic version of "Big Brother," some people were angered by the idea of watching young men and women mixing on these shows for 24 hours straight. The show was eventually suspended after critical calls from Bahraini viewers.
The next program to come under fire was "Star Academy." The program was on the air for only a few months before conservatives noticed. This was a case of extreme success in audience draw; it had fans from all over the Arab world and its participants came from various Arabic countries. The campaign against the program did not deter the public from following it until the very end, its last episode registering one of the highest viewer ratings ever.
A political commentator observed that this program gave viewers a chance to practice voting freely. People were asked to vote for the participants to determine the winner, and millions of callers and voters participated. This was due to the fact that participants knew that their votes would be counted and that they would ultimately have a say in choosing the winner, contrary to the local political scene where they know it is useless to vote.
Satellite television has crossed many boundaries to reach its Arab audience. For one, it crossed the illiteracy barrier that has negatively affected the growth of print media in the region. The other barrier surmounted was governments' control of content. As a result, most of these channels are enjoying success these days, though as they develop, some thought should be given to coverage of the real issues of the Arab world.-Published 22/4/04©bitterlemons-international
Abeer Mishkhas is a Saudi Arabian journalist and an editor at the Arab News newspaper in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
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