IRAQ: Media Wage Their Own War

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

N Janardhan

DUBAI, Apr 7 2003 (IPS) - Much like the claims and counter-claims made by Iraq and U.S.-led forces on the battlefront, the Arab and Western media too are engaged in a war of accusations and counter-accusations.

The conflict came to the fore with the Arab media coverage of explosions that killed dozens in Baghdad. The Arab media stuck to the notion that the deaths were a result of U.S. missiles as opposed to Washington’s stand that Iraqi ordnance could have caused the damage. The fact, however, is that the United States is yet to completely acknowledge or deny its role.

The problem is also one of perception. The Arab media has used more basic descriptions of the warring parties such as "U.S.-led forces" and "Iraqi forces", "government loyalists" or those resisting a "U.S.-led invasion". This is in direct contrast to the "liberator" image that the United States projects.

The U.S. State Department charges the Arab media of "twisting the facts" and of presenting "incendiary" news reports. Secretary of State Colin Powell even said that the Al Jazeera television lacks objectivity.

At the receiving end for beaming "distressing" pictures, Al Jazeera said it would not censor the horrors of war. It argued that "the audience has the right to see all aspects of the battle. We’re not catering for any specific side, or any specific ideology. What we are doing is our business as professionally as possible."

An indication of how the Qatar-based network doesn’t get special treatment is the Iraqi government’s move to suspend two correspondents from reporting for a few days for reasons that were not made public.

So compelled are the U.S. and UK governments to change the mood among the Arabs and Muslims that the British government has launched a high-level campaign to counter "negative" coverage in the Arab media. A minister will set aside at least one hour every day to the Arabic media, because "it is important, it matters that they hear what we are genuinely saying, as opposed to what is being mediated to them."

The Arab media refute the charge that they are "manipulating public opinion". Executive Manager of Dubai Press Club Mona Al Marri said: "We have faith in the capabilities and messages that Arab journalists can convey about the Iraqis’ suffering."

She emphasized that "it is the job of the journalists to highlight the frustration of the Arabs."

Part of the blame-game could be attributed to the initial setback the coalition forces suffered.

Richard Dean, a freelance journalist based in Dubai, explained: "I was in London recently and the government’s message was that the war would be a fast one and that the coalition troops would be welcomed by the Iraqis with flowers and that Saddam’s forces will lay down their weapons and surrender. But that hasn’t been the case."

Mazrat Abdalla, a university student in Dubai, said: "My first choice is Arab media. Not only am I more comfortable with Arabic, I also believe that Arabic papers and television channels are more balanced."

Arab satellite news channels have come far in the decade since the 1991 Gulf War, when the U.S. CNN network dominated coverage. Among those in the fray firmly held by Al Jazeera since 1996 are two new U.A.E.-based channels – Abu Dhabi and Al Arabiya.

Adding another dimension to her argument, Abdalla said: "We all know that the U.S.-led troops will win this war given that their forces are superior. The interest in this war is to know how many civilians will be killed in the process of America seeking to fulfil its objective. Since none of the Western channels are giving us the correct picture, most of us rely on the Arab media."

She added: "I don’t think Western media will give an Arab perspective. They only indulge in propaganda – as if they are always right and we are always wrong. This makes the United States everything contrary to its claims of being free, democratic and fair."

Such has been the influence of the "Arab perspective" that Arabs in the West have also been following the war more through the Arab media. Al Jazeera, for example, recorded 10 per cent increase in viewers since the war began, more than half of which is from Europe.

Such is also the popularity of Al Jazeera even among the "free thinkers" in the West that its "temporary" English website was hacked twice in the first week of war – presumably by "Westerners", as the postings of an American flag with the words "Support our troops" suggested.

It is ironical that even though all the U.S. networks are using live footage from Arab channels, it has mostly been long-range shots of bombing at night. Contrastingly, the Arab world sees pictures of blood and bodies, including American soldiers, which the Western public rarely sees.

Some U.S. newspapers noted the gap. These differing visions, according to ‘The Boston Globe’, "help to sharpen differences over the conflict".

Suggesting that coverage tends to mirror ideology, Rami G. Khouri wrote in Lebanon’s ‘Daily Star’ that "the Arab press – like Arab public opinion as a whole – predominantly opposes the attack, and does not hesitate to say so. Yet the press is neither monolithic nor uniformly anti-American."

He added that "leading newspapers in and around the Arab world include both American and Iraqi perspectives," and even shows the "U.S. forces as both aggressors and humanitarians."

As things stand, the media war is set to continue well into the post-war phase. Arab information ministers will give shape to a 23-million dollar media campaign to denounce terrorism accusations in the West against the Arabs.

And, the United States is preparing to launch an Arabic-language television station in the Middle East to boost its image.

Not one to be left behind, Al Jazeera hopes to launch an English-language channel to compete with the "big guys" and give "another perspective".

Till then, as Abdel Bari Atwan, chief editor of the London-based ‘Al Qods Al Arabi’ newspaper, said in the local media, "Baghdad is burning and Arabs shift from one channel to another searching for the most terrible images, those that best express the crime of George W. Bush."