The Arab spring has shaken Arab TV's credibility
Their biased coverage is undermining viewers' faith in the Middle Eastern satellite channels that sprang up in the 1990s and 2000s
Twenty-two years ago my father, a Lebanese immigrant in Sierra Leone, bought a huge satellite dish with tens of channels to replace the radio that we had used to listen to the BBC's Arabic service. I was only 10 at the time but I remember people gathering at our place to see CNN's coverage of Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait. People always saw CNN as representing America, but still they wanted to know what was happening. This continued with the US-led intervention to liberate Kuwait.
In those days there were still no credible Arab channels to cover the war. We only had the state-run TV stations those that would always follow their leaders' and kings' agenda, even if the whole universe was on fire.
A few years later things started to change, and the turning point was in 1994 when the BBC decided to launch its Saudi-funded Arabic TV. The project attracted tens of Arab journalists who thought for a while that they were on the threshold of a huge shift in the Arab media landscape.
Two years later the BBC-Saudi project faced a serious dilemma when the channel aired a documentary about a Saudi arms deal. Within weeks it was off air and its journalists were abandoned to their fate though not for long.
In 1996 a new channel came to life. Qatar launched al-Jazeera and hired most of those who were dumped by BBC. This time they were assured that nothing would stop the new station, mainly because there were no limits, no red lines, and an unlimited budget. In the Arab countries, where people are used to listening on a daily basis to speeches by their leaders or members of ruling families, the new channel introduced counter-fire talk shows and documentaries from hotspots with an emphasis on controversial issues. For the first time, people saw opposition figures from around the Arab world saying in Arabic what they had only dared to say before on western channels in English or French.
Over the past 16 years al-Jazeera has emerged as the most credible news source in the region, though it was also joined by other channels such as al-Arabiya, Iran's Alalam, the American al-Hurra, Russia's RT and others.
The new Arab TV channels seemed to be flourishing and gaining credibility until the Arab spring came along and they began providing daily coverage of the revolutions. From Tunisia to Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, and Syria, people expected TV stations to embrace their dreams and defend their causes, but it seems that major networks decided to adopt some revolutions and dump others.
One example was the way they dealt with the uprising in Bahrain. It was clear that Gulf-financed stations were more interested in regional security than Bahrainis' dreams of democracy and freedom and their revolt against tyranny.
Meanwhile, mainstream Arab channels gave the Syrian revolution a large portion of airtime, but things took a different path when they started interfering with the coverage. I was one of those who experienced it when al-Jazeera, the channel I used to work for, refused to air footage of gunmen fighting the Syrian regime on the borders between Lebanon and Syria. I saw tens of gunmen crossing the borders in May last year clear evidence that the Syrian revolution was becoming militarised. This didn't fit the required narrative of a clean and peaceful uprising, and so my seniors asked me to forget about gunmen.
It was clear to me, though, that these instructions were not coming from al-Jazeera itself: that the decision was a political one taken by people outside the TV centre the same people who asked the channel to cover up the situation in Bahrain. I felt that my dream of working for a main news channel in the region was becoming a nightmare. The principles I had learned during 10 years of journalism were being disrespected by a government that whatever the editorial guideines might say believed it owned a bunch of journalists who should do whatever they were asked.
Today, Arab media is divided. Media outlets have become like parties; politics dominates the business and on both sides of the landscape and people can't really depend on one channel to get their full news digest. It is as if the audience have to do journalists' homework by cross-checking sources and watching two sides of a conflict to get one piece of news.
The problem isn't who is telling lies and who is accurate. Media organisations are giving the part of the story that serves the agenda of their financier, so it's clear that only part of the truth is exposed while the other part is buried. What is obvious is that the investment in credibility during the past two decades has been in vain. The elite are once again dealing with Arab news channels the way they used to do with Arab state media.
Once again, people have started relying more on western media to know what's going on. That is reflected in the number of viewers the BBC Arabic TV channel gained during the past year reportedly more than 10m while leading Arab channels have been losing viewers.
Governments who own media organisations in the Middle East, and impose their agendas, are pushing them towards journalistic suicide. They are taking the Arab media landscape back to the early 1990s rather than moving it forward.
The Arab spring has shaken Arab TV's credibility | Ali Hashem | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
The collapse of Al-Jazeera's credibility
Before the beginning of the Arab Spring, we were a voice for change...a platform for critics and political activists throughout the region. Now, Al-Jazeera has become a propaganda broadcaster.
Since the commencement of the War on Terror and the subsequent media focus on al-Qaeda and bin Laden, Al-Jazeera has become a household name. The emergence of this channel is seen as a breath of fresh air by many, in that it provides much needed balance to the public debate and offers alternative views in a world dominated by western media discourse.
The fact that the channel is owned and tightly controlled by the undemocratic and authoritarian Qatari royal family, that jails independent journalists who criticise the regime at home, seems to have gone unnoticed and ignored by many. But since the start of the Arab Spring, that is slowly starting to change.
According to an article that appeared in the German magazine Der Spiegel, many leading journalists and TV anchors have started to leave the channel in recent months. According to one of those that has recently left, the German based Aktham Sulimen, Before the beginning of the Arab Spring, we were a voice for change...a platform for critics and political activists throughout the region. Now, Al-Jazeera has become a propaganda broadcaster.
According to another Beirut based correspondent, Al-Jazeera takes a clear position in every country from which it reports not based on journalistic priorities, but rather on the interests of the Foreign Ministry of Qatar......In order to maintain my integrity as a reporter, I had to quit."
In truth, Al-Jazeera was never an independent media outlet and always had a political bias.
I can remember watching its Arabic language coverage of the revolution in Egypt and noticing that it dedicated two hours to a rambling speech by Muslim Brotherhood-allied cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who also happens to be based in Qatar. The speech didn't even attract a large crowd in Egypt and was largely irrelevant to what was happening on the streets. It was merely propaganda for the Muslim Brotherhood, which did not lead the revolution but is close to the Qatari royal family.
The only reason al-Jazeera supported political dissidents pre-Arab Spring was because the Qatari royal family opposed secular dictators such as Mubarak and Gaddafi. Not because they were dictators but because they were largely secular and despised the clout Qatar sought to wield. Support for dissidents in this context was not about love for freedom and openness, but motivated by a desire to undermine regimes the Qatari state viewed unfavourably.
Since the Muslim Brotherhood has come to power in Egypt, Al-Jazeera has done all in its power to portray the group in a favourable light. Protests against the Brotherhood-dominated regime are presented as being led by violent thugs with no political grievances, while Morsi's poorly constructed and shallow speeches are given positive coverage.
Similarly, the network has largely ignored the protests in neighbouring Bahrain while at the same time dedicating a great deal of attention to the protests in Syria.
In many ways, Al-Jazeera's approach is similar to that of the British far-left in that its commitment to principles of justice and fairness only apply when it is dealing with governments or peoples disliked. To extend the analogy, people also often take it at face value simply because it seems to represent the other side of the argument.
Regardless of the this collapse of credibility, with supposed luxury working conditions, bureaus around the world, and a recent $500 million investment in the US, Al-Jazeera is on the rise. Backed by Qatari petro-dollars it will continue to broadcast its hopelessly biased coverage of events in the Middle East, while portraying itself as a champion of free-thinking and journalistic independence.
Yet, as resignations of journalist and correspondents continue and public criticism increases, the reality of its political agenda will become harder to conceal.
The collapse of Al-Jazeera's credibility - The Commentator
