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The Layalina Review

VOL. V NO. 5, February 13-February 26, 2009

When News Flirt With Propaganda

According to John Lloyd in the Financial Times, "No concept in journalism is more contested than impartiality." Lloyd points to a "growing club of "anti-hegemonic news channels"" such as Al-Jazeera who "see impartial western reporting as a sham."

Thus, Lloyd believes Al-Jazeera has positioned itself as the antidote to western news channels, calling itself "the voice of the voiceless."

However, the BBC's recent decision not to air an appeal by the Disasters Emergency Committee for emergency aid to Gaza (See PR V.4: BBC Under Fire for Gaza Decision) is not proof of Al-Jazeera's "sham" claims, according to independent television producer John Bridcut. Bridcut states he "has about 12 reasons for believing the BBC is right," including the complexity of the Israel-Palestine debate, and his view that Gaza is a political as well as humanitarian crisis.

A Journalism report confirms the exponential growth and influence of non-western media in a survey of the Washington, DC press corps. The "dramatically transformed" press corps now contains a contingent of foreign reports ten times the size it was a generation ago when the State Department first opened a Foreign Press Center for non-US media representatives.

Journalism posits that this shift in the press corps makeup naturally leads to a "different picture" of America being sent abroad than could be seen a generation ago, when information came mainly from American-based cable and news wires.

The rise in influence of Middle East news channels could also account for President Obama's current Middle East media strategy, writes Hessam Parzivand on Islam Online. Parzivand notes Obama's belief that "favorable media coverage can help the US image in the region."

To achieve this, Parzivand points to a change in "the tone of his rhetoric," where the "war on terrorism" becomes the "struggle against terrorism," and former President Bush's frequent references to spreading democracy have been eschewed. The success of Obama's strategy will be seen when the "gap between how the US media covers events in the region and the Middle Eastern media coverage" is narrowed.

In Egypt, Noha El-Hennawy of the Los Angeles Times covers dozens of activists who took to the streets of Cairo to protest the conviction and two year sentence of anti-government journalist Magdy Ahmed Hussein, who was arrested for illegally crossing into the Gaza Strip during the Israeli incursion.

Naglaa Qalyoubi, Hussein's wife, concluded "This verdict is a way to punish Magdi for his anti-Mubarak positions." Further, Mohamed Damati, one of Hussein's lawyers, denounced the military tribunal that found Hussein guilty. "I cannot call the trial a trial or the judge who was there a judge. All the procedures that were implemented had nothing to do with legal procedures."

In the West Bank, reports Khaled Abu Toameh for the Jerusalem Post, six Palestinian journalists detained without trial in recent months have been remanded in prison because they "posed a threat to the national interests of the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian people." The journalists fell foul of a recent Palestinian Authority crackdown on local media.

Meanwhile, Rob at Arab Media Shack highlights Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Hanai's complimentary remarks about Al-Jazeera. "I want to take this opportunity to express mine and the Palestinian people's great esteem for the noble role Al-Jazeera carries out…committed to the Umma's causes, especially the Palestinian cause." Rob sees Hanai's statement as a deliberate sleight of Al-Arabiya, who Rob describes as a "tool of the Saudi royal family.

Beyond government-led media crackdowns, media coverage of Gaza in the Arab world has also reflected Arab rifts, according to Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani at the Inter Press Service.

Mohamed Mansour, professor of mass media at Cairo University argued, "Coverage of the Gaza conflict by certain Arab language news channels aggravated the rift between the Arab 'moderate' and 'rejectionist' camps."

In this sense, Al-Jazeera gave extensive coverage of Egypt's reluctance to open its Gaza border for humanitarian aid, proof to some of its "lean towards the official Qatari perspective…[reflecting] the official position of its benefactor." Meanwhile, Egyptian talk show Al-Beit Beituk's reaction to Al-Jazeera's coverage, describing it as "part of a despicable media war against Egypt," demonstrates the control of "government editors-in-chief" over Egyptian media coverage.

Claude Salhani in the Middle East Times reports further evidence of intra-media squabbling over impartiality. Salhani refers to criticism of the Times by Al-Hayat's Jihad al-Khazen. Al-Khazen referred to the Middle East Times as the "Jewish Middle East Times Magazine," accusing the publication of being anti-Arab and anti-Muslim.

In a rebuttal, Salhani notes that the Middle East Times "prides itself as being one of the rare, if not the only publication dedicated to coverage of the Middle East to not openly take sides in the Arab-Israeli dispute." Salhani further accuses al-Khazen of engaging in "'Goebbelsian' tactics in meshing half-truths with half-lies and mixing them in with truth and fact."

The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs website similarly attempts so serve as a corrective, educational tool, reports Brenda Gazzar for the Jerusalem Post. The site "is meant to allow the Arab public to become familiar with facts and ways of thinking that are not being presented to them by their own media outlets."

Jerusalem Center Research Fellow Zvi Mazel says the site has received both positive and negative feedback from Arabs. Mazel concludes, "We don't fight through violence; we fight through a war of ideas." Back to articles.