Media in Arab countries lack transparency, diversity and independence
Event Reports
Shahira El Rafei, senior editor of Al Ahram Newspaper in Cairo, Egypt, kicked off her statement by quoting a colleague: “It (the media) was professionally extremely poor when it was pro-government and now it is still poor and pro-revolution.” However, asking what the newspapers write about the president is the wrong approach. The question that needs to be posed is whether the present environment and conditions are conducive for the media to assume their role in shaping the political culture. While the Arab satellite channels, private newspapers and social media played a significant role in promoting real change before and during the revolution, the state-owned media still have a strong influence. In Egypt, eight state-owned print media outlets produce 55 publications. They employ 4,000 journalists and 20,000 administrators. In addition, the Egyptian radio and TV hire more than 40,000 employees. El Rafei pointed out that there are major gaps regarding the legal framework and media ownership in Egypt and the region. Even though she left the question open, she seemed to draw the conclusion that a serious lack of transparency regarding ownership and funding as well as a lack of norms and self-regulating bodies make it impossible for the media to assume their role.
Influence of Arab media
Omar Abassi, political scientist and member of the Istiqlal Party in Morocco, described how his country handled demands for political reform differently than other countries in the region and how this affected media coverage. “The Moroccan system left space for civil and political activism that national human rights advocates used effectively to demand more democracy and freedom. The Moroccan king’s quick response to the demands of reform made it less exciting for Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya than in Egypt or Libya to cover the events“, Abassi said. “Morocco adopted a new constitution, we had elections and we now have a new government”, he added. However, some bureaucrats within the government seem to block efforts to increase media freedom. Social media brought about a large shift in Morocco’s media landscape and are high on demand among the country’s youth, having considerable influence on the political scene. Arab satellite TV channels have high viewing rates but western media are regarded as more professional and also have a strong effect on the political life.
Oraib al Rantawi, founder and director of Al Quds Center for Political Studies in Amman, Jordan drew attention to the “big picture”, explaining who controls the media in the Arab region. “We have to talk about pan-Arab media because the influence of some Arab media outlets in the domestic scene in many Arab countries is stronger than the influence of the state-owned media”, he pointed out. The first major revolution in the Arab media sector took place in the 1990s with the launch of hundreds of TV satellite channels including Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya. Today, almost 700 TV channels dominate the political scene in the Arab countries. “If you know who owns these channels, you can decide what the role of the media is in shaping the future of the Middle East”, Al Rantawi said. He continued explaining that nine major Arab TV networks which own hundreds of TV channels are all owned by Saudis, Qataris and Emiratis. The ownership of the three major Arabic newspapers published in London can be traced back to the same countries. Al Rantawi asked the audience to judge for themselves whether, in relation to the Arab Spring, these countries are part of the pro- or the counter-revolution camp and how they use these media outlets that dominate 80% of the media sector in the Arab world. Another player in the media sector are influential religious TV stations that emerged over the past 15 years. They belong to the Salafist movement and are used as a tool of foreign policy by the same countries mentioned before, to promote the most extremist interpretation of Islam.
Al Rantawi also highlighted the issue of the Sunni-Shia divide in the Arab region. More than 20 TV channels promote a culture of hatred and extremism, worsening the divide among the people and thus challenging the major achievements of the Arab Spring. “We found the counter-revolution very active through these channels … it is the way to contain the revolution and to prevent it from achieving a democratic transformation for our societies”, he said. One of the victims of the dominant role of the counter-revolution in the media sector is the Bahraini revolution. “It has no place in the media coverage; we don’t know what’s going on.” Social media opened a new space for expression in the Arab countries, with Facebook users almost quintupling over the past two years. Most users are below the age of 30 and 34% of users are women which is a good signal, compared to less than 10% in politics in most Arab countries. However, Al Rantawi was quick to point out that social media are also used as a tool to impede the democratisation process and promote a culture of hatred and divide.
"If BBC is wrong, whom can I trust?"
Jasna Zajcek who reports on the Syrian revolution for Die Tageszeitung (taz) compared the performance of Arab, western and Syrian media at the start of the Syrian revolution. Syrians increasingly turned to watching CNN because they perceived Al Jazeera’s coverage as adding oil to the fire. At the same time, the Syrian state media accused all other media outlets of “making it all up”; pretending things were going as usual. In addition to the Saudi and Qatari influence on the media sector, the Iranian agenda and the Christian agenda also play a major role. “(There are) people who just and only believe their religious station. They don’t want to believe anything else”, Zajcek said. “It is hard to find the truth and get close to what really happens. As western journalists we face the task of checking the sources more than ever”, she added. “Even BBC, The Guardian, The Independent have proven to be wrong. If BBC is wrong, whom can I trust?” Eventually, the quality of the news-reporting depended heavily on a well-informed editor who makes the right decisions.
Al Jazeera’s controversial role dominated the beginning of the discussion. Several participants demanded to give the channel credit for its contribution to opening up the media environment in the Arab region when it first started but also during the Arab Spring. However, it lost credibility since the beginning of the Arab Spring and its coverage on the Bahraini revolution which made most people realise its agenda. According to Al Rantawi, the Arab audience now understands that Al Jazeera and other Arab satellite TV channels are not independent but extensions of the foreign ministries of the countries they belong to, interfering in many Arab countries.
Despite this development, Al Jazeera remains the first source for domestic, regional and international news, reaching up to 15 million people with its talk shows and maintaining a huge influence across the region. Another topic discussed was the legal and societal framework. Although many Arab countries have a press law in place, preventing governments from arresting journalists, there are other legislations that seriously affect the freedom of the press. In Jordan, for instance, there are 23 such legislations. They need to be amended to guarantee real freedom of the press. Another phenomenon limiting press freedom are the “thugs” – Shabiha and Baltagiya – increasingly used by governments to attack media offices and threaten the lives of journalists. A third phenomenon are governments trying to softly contain the media by putting media practitioners on the payroll or by providing them special services. “At the end of the day, you will never have a free press without having a free society as well – and this is what the Arab Spring is all about”, Al Rantawi concluded.
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