On the scene with Al Jazeera: PMs force their way into Arab League

Yesterday I was on my way to a meeting with the bureau chief of Al Jazeera's Cairo bureau when I heard about the Israeli strike on Qana that killed more than fifty people, half of whom were children. When I got to the office my interviewee was away at the Arab League apparently so I ended up interviewing a reporter with the channel. After about an hour he told me he had to go. As I waited by the elevator he and his crew, a cameraman and mike-man, came out and I asked them where they were headed. Apparently some MPs, notably the Muslim Brotherhood as well as other opposition party MPs, had decided to hold an impromptu march from parliament to the Arab league a few blocks away. "Can I go?" I asked, eager to see the journalists from this controversial station at work. Sure. We drove to Parliament where masses of photographers and cameramen were already massed, waiting for the demonstration to start. At about noon the MPs came out with their banners and Lebanese and Palestinian flags, chanting slogans against Israel, America, and the carnage in Qana. I watched as the Al Jazeera cameraman ran about for the best shot, climbing a lamppost, hopping on a stepladder, and always seeming to anticipate where the next best shot would come from. The reporter suggested some shots, but for the most part it seemed this experienced cameraman had a good sense of how and where to get the best shot.

We made our way up to Tharir Square (the site of last week's protests) though of course this time there were no plainclothes thugs or riot police. Plenty of military and civilian police made sure others didn't join the protest, however. When the march got to the Arab League it paused for awhile so an MP could make his call for a stop to the war and condemnation of the war in Lebanon and Palestine. A woman with her baby wearing a patriotic headband and a young Lebanese girl in tears whose family is in Tyre stole some of his thunder as photographers crowded around to put a human face on the war and its opponents.

After about half-an-hour the MPs pushed their way through the row of civilian police to the very doors to the Arab League, demanding to see Amr Musa. One MP fainted and was taken inside where he lay on a table as a group of people tried to revive him. After awhile the MPs apparently got their way and the guards started letting journalists in. I made my way through with the Al Jazeera crew and we were ushered into a waiting room on the first floor. Cameramen from Al Arabiyya, EgyptTV, Al Manar, etc. were milling about, waiting for a chance to photograph the meeting between the MPs and Musa. After about 45 minutes those with cameras were told they could go into the chamber where they were meeting. I took my little point-and-shoot and made my way in. I had to show extra ID and I don't know how happy the security was to discover I was American, but I got in and spent a few minutes listening to the MPs pressure Musa to do something. They sat around a huge, round wooden table with flags from each of the Arab League members as a backdrop behind Musa. All the cameramen and reporters in the chamber and those waiting behind in the holding area were male, although the Al Jazeera reporter assured me there are women television journalists and it must just be a coincidence that I was the only woman there. Overall my impression was that each journalist there was trying to et the best shot, the most moving image, etc. There was no effort to slant the coverage, just to get the best shot. I must say that actually being on a story with the Al Jazeera crew confirms my perceptions of the station as an important news competitor out to get the best story, just like any Western station. It's just that the story is often not going to be in the best interest of the United States because US policies in the region are not in the best interest of the US, much less the Arabs and others who live here and who comprise the vast majority of Al Jazeera's audience.

Israeli media scholar in Cairo calls for peace

This email was sent by the author, Mike Dahan, to 100 of his academic colleagues in Israel following a week-long conference on International Association for Media and Communication Research. The conference brought scholars from all over the world, including Israel and Lebanon, to Cairo and for many it was there first time here. While blogging, satellite TV, audience research and politics dominated at panels and plenaries, conversations over lunch or dinner often turned to the war in Lebanon. Here is one scholar's plea for peace.

A Call for Peace, Understanding and an end to the Violence: A Lesson from Lebanon

I am an Israeli political scientist currently participating in an academic conference in Cairo, Egypt. It is the annual meeting of the International Association of Media and Communication Research. Even under the best of circumstances, it is not easy for an Israeli to participate in a conference in Cairo due to issues related to normalization. Today, when Israel is at war with Lebanon, it is even more difficult. Indeed, almost all the Israeli participants cancelled at the last minute. I decided to go because I felt that as an academic, an intellectual, it was crucial for me to participate, to keep lines of communication open with my Arab and Muslim colleagues in the region. To talk and to discuss. To share knowledge.

The conference has a large number of participants from throughout the region -- Palestinians, Lebanese, Iranians, Syrians, Egyptians and others. I presented a paper co authored with an Egyptian colleague and friend. In the audience and on the panel with me were my "enemies". At least, that is what my government and to a certain extent, my society, would like me to believe.

The paper was very well received. The next day, one of the people at the conference who had heard the presentation approached me and complimented me on the paper. He introduced himself as a Professor at the American University in Beirut. He had also come to the conference in spite of the "situation", a word that has become a euphemism for the death and destruction, the agony and the pain that we all share. He noted that I was slightly nervous during the presentation, that he had felt this and wanted to tell me that I had no reason to be nervous, that it was a good paper. Under any other circumstances his comments would have been innocent, devoid of any emotional weight. A simple expression of respect and comraderie from one academic to another. Yet his remarks and his insight brought tears to my eyes. I expressed to him my disgust for the violence that is being perpetrated by my country against his own. He in turn expressed similar feelings about the suffering in northern Israel. He handed me a copy of his own paper. A little while later we met again. I told him that his remarks had brought tears to my eyes. We looked at

each other and embraced. A few hours later, when I had a chance, I began to read his paper. In the prologue he noted the words of two Egyptian artists, Ahmad Fouad Negm, and the Oud player, Sheikh Imam.He brought forth only four lines which stress the power of words, the main tools of communication. These words echo and reverberate in my mind, refusing to leave me, to allow me any rest or respite:

Should the sun drown in the sea of clouds

And should the world be engulfed in waves of darkness

You who search, and care, for meaning

Shall find nothing to guide you, but eyes made of words.

I call on my colleagues back home, those "who search and care for meaning", to take heed of these words, to listen and to think, to rise above the pain and sorrow, and to let reason and humanity prevail. In the end, as human beings, all we have is our own basic humanity. As academics all we have in the end are words. Let us use these two very basic tools to end the suffering, to speak out loudly and clearly, before it is too late and we are all engulfed in the flames.

-- Michael (Mike) Dahan, Cairo, July 26th, 2006

Cairo's protests in support of Lebanon turn violent

Kifaya and other supporters of Lebanon gathered in Tharir Square in the center of Cairo to protest the war in Lebanon and Palestine, and once again the police and plainclothes thugs demonstrated the government's intolerance of freedom of expression. I got to the protest as it began at 6pm with people trickling in from the main arteries leading to Tharir and gathering in the center median waving Lebanese, Hezbollah, and Lebanese flags. People held signs protesting the killing of civilians and calling on governments in the Middle East and abroad to come to the aid of the Lebanese. The crowd swelled and by 6:30 there were hundreds of protesters surrounded by three lines of plainclothes police whose linked arms created an impenetrable wall around the protesters. Outside this triple line were a row of black-clothed riot police and beyond them the police in white. Hundreds of police and military surrounded the sidewalks to prevent people from further interrupting traffic. The protests were peaceful enough and as I stood in the milieu watching a man who is apparently the father of a famous actor being interviewed by ART television, CNBC Arabic and others, I was thinking that perhaps these protests would be different than the in the past. They weren't. When the crowd started surging as more and more people joined I realized things were about to get violent. I made my way to the edges but found myself at the front of the surge next to the man leading the slogan shouting and decided I needed to get out as the noose of police began to tighten and I could see the riot police with helmet and batons making their way toward the crowd. But as I was pressed against the flanks of police I couldn't get out and their groping hands made my fear even more intense. "Ana Amreekia" I shouted to the men who stood between me and freedom, but to no avail. I was getting smashed against the wall of police, my backpack threatening to be torn from my back and losing my grip of the Lebanese flag I had been holding. "Ana Amreekia" I shouted over and over again, "I want to get out!!" I reached over the flanks of plainclothes and tried to get the attention of the riot police in black who heard my call and grabbed my hand. But they wouldn't budge. The police in black grasped my hand as I struggled to keep my backpack and get through the linked arms that prevented my escape. I felt hands all over, groping and grabbing as I somehow squeezed through once a policeman in white helped me over the or under or something. I don't know how I got out and I lost my friend, another American of Indian decent who wasn't so "obviously" American. I was shaking and violated as I threaded my way through the cars that were still trying to get through the crowd. I stood for an hour asking every policeman whho looked like he might be in charge of something or someone to help me get my friend out, but the option was go back in or stay out. I stayed out, because by then the batons were out, beating the protesters as they shouted in support of Lebanon. Of course I am lucky. Being American is still somewhat of a protective shield, a passport out of trouble. But what about all of the Egyptians and others who did not chicken out and shout for the police to let them out? What does it mean when an American, a foreigner, gets better treatment in a country than its own citizens? I feel I know first-hand, though, the risks and fear those with the strength to protest against injustice in a political system that does not value or permit free expression. I have so much respect for the journalists, judges, political parties and regular citizens who risk brutality and molestation to protest for their rights and the rights of others, be they Lebanese, or journalists, or the legal system. I'm sure the Arabist will post something once Hossam gets out of the milieu. I hope that no one is too brutalized or arrested…

A question of words

On BBC World yesterday the note at the bottom of the screen sad "Israel pushes into Southern Lebanon." If the Mexican army went into the Southern United States would CNN describe it as a push, or as an invasion? Given norms of sovereignty and the international laws defining state territory and conduct of war, it seems to me BBC would have been far more accurate to describe the Israeli military's "push" into Lebanon as an "invasion." Perhaps if journalists think about how they would describe what was happening if it were their own country and its neighbor they could achieve a more balanced and more accurate perspective, which would improve the language used to describe conflict.

No Carrier: Al Jazeera International to be Available only Online in the U.S.

A producer in the Al Jazeera International bureau in Washington D.C. just informed me that AJI has failed to find an American carrier and will therefore only be available to an American audience via the internet. Launch dates have been pushed back again, having originally been scheduled for the spring, then the summer, and now fall. From an email:

We have two running bets on launch dates: Sept. 18 and Nov. 1. Either way, it's pretty close. No way we'll get a carrier in the US. We'll justhave to watch over the net, as sad as that is.

I suppose it is of little surprise that American companies don't want to carry the channel of a brand the US government has worked so hard over the past few years to associate with pro-terrorism and anti-Americanism. Situated incidentally at the same address but one street up, from the New York Times Washington bureau, the station's offices were bustling when I visited in May and they seemed ready to compete with the other peddlers of influence that inhabit K Street. Al Jazeera can boast name recognition as the fifth most recognized brand in the world. But perhaps the US government and private media owners have decided that that is exactly the problem. As a journalist I interviewed here in Cairo put it, "look at the effect Al Jazeera has had in the Arab world and on US policy already. Imagine the effect it will have when it can speak to them in their own language." This, I think, is what those in control of the means of media dissemination fear. Al Jazeera has also been unable to get a distributor, liability insurance, accounting services, and even banking services.

Joanne Levine, a seasoned reporter now working for Al Jazeera International's Washington bureau, wrote about her experience trying to cover a story about the rural exodus from middle America and the harassment and discrimination she and her colleagues endured. She writes that the Canadian and US Border Patrol were suspicious that Al Jazeera would want to cover a story in North Dakota.

Say that name in the United States and, likely as not, the listener will practically shudder in revulsion. Many Americans automatically think "terrorist TV," or "Osama bin Laden's network." They see al-Jazeera, the Arabic-language channel based in Qatar, as the al-Qaeda leader's mouthpiece, broadcasting his videotaped messages of jihad.

But Al Jazeera wasn't always perceived as a pernicious, pro-terrorist, anti-American propaganda machine. From its inception in 1996 through 2001 the discourse about the station in both governmental circles and the mainstream media was primarily positive and uncritical. After September 11, 2001 the discourse shifted and became far more contentious. The debates about pan-Arab satellite news largely revolve around two axes of contention. First is the role of the Arab satellite media in political reform and liberalization in the Middle East. Within this debate are discussions about the culture of Arab news journalism, which are situated within the larger debate on globalization in terms of its homogenizing versus empowering impact. The values of Arab journalism and the political economy of satellite networks reflect these debates on cultural relativism and universality. Second is the issue of whether Arab satellite news is anti-American. It is this discourse that has come to dominate the current debate over Al Jazeera International. Levine continues:

The conservative watchdog group Accuracy in Media is trying to block us any way it can. The United American Committee, which defines its mission as promoting awareness of extremist Islamic threats in the United States, even organized a protest outside the network's Washington offices in April, although only a handful of demonstrators showed up.

But one has to wonder at the discrediting of Al Jazeera that the US government, think tanks, and the mainstream media have undertaken. Most of the journalists working for the station worked at the BBC. And you know where many of the journalists and producers working at the US government's Arabic satellite station Al Hurra came from? You guessed it, Al Jazeera. I have many friends who have bounced from Al Jazeera, to Al Hurra, to Al Jazeera International, following the lure of money and training. If the American government's critical "public diplomacy" effort for the Middle East, Al Hurra, hires Al Jazeera reporters, then they must be doing something right, right?

I think it's a shame the American people won't have the opportunity to see Al Jazeera International and judge for themselves whether they want to watch the news on that station or another. If freedom of choice is constrained are we not constraining the very foundation of democracy and the right to freedom of expression? I, for one, would be interested to hear a different perspective than CNN or Fox "News" or MSNBC. Just as I can watch MHz's various foreign language news broadcasts, some of which are in English, I should be able to watch Al Jazeera. What are US distributors so afraid of?

New anti-terrorism draws provokes questions: who's funding it?

There's a new commercial on satellite channel Al Alrabiya, which is owned by relatives of the Saud family and is part of the MBC group, that promote an anti-terrorism message. What's not clear is who is funding and producing it. The commercials are quite graphic. They take a "typical" bustling Arab street with people shopping and chatting, when all of a sudden a guy walks into the scene and detonates a bomb in his backpack. People scream as debris flies everywhere and flames engulf cars and bodies fly through windows. The "after" shot shows a wailing child next to a bloody body. Then the screen goes black. Then "who kills his own.." flashed on the screen with a message about how suicide bombing is against Islam. It's a very graphic commercial in an almost stylized way, and I'm interested to find out who paid for its broadcast and why.

What is balance? Reporting the War in Lebanon

What does "balance" mean in the field of journalism? Journalists across the world, and especially those I've interviewed over the past month or so in Cairo, consistently mention balance as the objective and definition of good journalism. An Al Jazeera producer told me “the only thing that they care about is balance.” Everyone describes balance, rather than the elusive and discredited idea of "objectivity", as the core of good journalism practice and as an international standard by which good journalism can be judged.

But what does this mean, specifically with reference to coverage of the war in Lebanon? For example, should each side get equal time, equal coverage? Does every mention of a death on one side require mention of a death on the other? And what is the equation to use? The reports on both Western news stations and newspapers reported that the Israelis retaliated killing 12, 27, 150, 245, 345 number of Lebanese civilians after the kidnapping of 2 Israeli soldiers, then the killing of 12 civilians in Haifa and 12 more soldiers (whose job, in both countries, is ultimately to kill and possibly get killed trying). Does constantly juxtaposing the number of Israeli dead with the number of Lebanese somehow justify the killing, as if by keeping it even it is somehow more justifiable? But of course it isn't equal. Far more Lebanese have been killed by Israeli bombing and missiles than have been killed by Hezbollah missiles. And what about the balance of country with the most advanced weaponry and access to much more fighting against one with minimal military might who just escaped from under the thumb of Syria a year ago with barely enough time to even begin rebuilding a domestic military force capable of fighting against such an adversary?

On the first day of this most recent conflict Hezbollah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers. By the week's end Israel had bombed the airport, major roads and bridges, and other civilian infrastructure. Then Hezbollah started shooting missiles at Haifa. In the news reports on the BBC the reporter described the bombing of Lebanon then talked about the "thousands of Israelis" that sought safety in bomb shelters. No mention of the tens of thousands of Lebanese who had to flee there homes or of the fact that most of them do not even have bomb shelters. The Lebanese government never built bomb shelters for its citizens, as the Israeli government did. Only in the seventh day of the war did we start hearing about this on BBC. Of course there was no mention of this on Al Manar, but we do not expect them to be balanced because they are the propaganda wing of Hezbollah. Qatar's Al Jazeera, on the other hand, attempted to report on the Israeli side of things, only to be detained and harassed by Israeli officials. Israel's Haaretz newspaper carried an article the other day about Israel's first conscientious objector. Arabs have the highest expectations for pan-Arab stations like Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya, while Arabs and Westerners alike have even higher standards it seems for stations like the BBC, which has access to both Israeli and Lebanese viewpoints.

But how can reporters remain balanced when they are embedded with the Israeli military (or American or any other military force for that matter)? Their lives are directly tied up with the success of that side. Obviously there are no embeds with Hezbollah, although Al Manar could be seen as playing that role. Of course, Al Manar is in Arabic and banned from American and French satellite carriers so even if someone wanted to see Hezbollah's point of view it would be inaccessible. For that matter, how can stations like Hariri’s Future TV remain “balanced” when from the Lebanese perspective everything has been thrown off balance. The same questions arose following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. I never saw a newscast attempt to “balance” their coverage of the disaster that hit American. Should we expect more from Lebanese, or even Arabic news stations?

I don't see an answer to balance, although I think it is a critical objective of good journalism. I just think journalists need to question and analyze how they choose to portray something, the context they put it in, and most importantly, to examine their underlying assumptions.

The Bush Administration Recycles it's Discrediting Tactics

The Bush administration seems to be using the same tactics against reporters and those critical of US policy re. Lebanon/Israel as has been used in the lead-up and aftermath of the Iraq war and the "War on Terror." Namely, associate those who question you or exhibit skepticism with "the enemy" in order to discredit them and silence that perspective. They did it when they equated war protesters with terrorists and terrorist supporters. They did this when they said you are with us or you are against us. They did this with Valerie Plame. And on Tuesday they did it again with the denizen of the White House press corps, Helen Thomas.

Here is the exchange between Snow (formerly of Fox News) and Thomas, in its entirety, from the July 18 press briefing. (Thanks to the Arabist for first alerting me to this exchange)

TONY SNOW, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Helen.

Q The United States is not that helpless. It could have stopped the bombardment of Lebanon. We have that much control with the Israelis.

MR. SNOW: I don't think so, Helen.

Q We have gone for collective punishment against all of Lebanon and Palestine.

MR. SNOW: What's interesting, Helen --

Q And this is what's happening, and that's the perception of the United States.

MR. SNOW: Well, thank you for the Hezbollah view, but I would encourage you --

Having worked at the New York Times in Washington and thus knowing many journalists on all sides of the aisle, I no no one who thinks Helen Thomas is a hack. She is a highly respected journalist who has been one of the few to even question or press the president and his representatives. Tony Snow, on the other hand, has used the only tool the administration has been able to find to deal with legitimate criticism or just questioning- discredit the person saying it. Snow equates Thomas with Hezbollah supporter. Cheney et al. leaked Valerie PlameÂ’s CIA cover to discredit her husband because he was critical of the presidentÂ’s policy. To buy into this technique is in fact to destroy thabilityty to practice democracy. Democracy is not a given, it is not static, it is a process that must be practiced every day through open discussion and freedom of expression. The exchange continues, with Thomas putting into words what many journalists here in Cairo and in the blogosphere think on a daily basis, that nobody is accepting the administration's explanation (for this war or the Iraq war for that matter).

Q Nobody is accepting your explanation. What is restraint, a call for restraint?

MR. SNOW: Well, I'll tell you, what's interesting, Helen, is people have. The G8 was completely united on this. And as you know, when it comes to issues of --

Q And we stopped a cease-fire -- why?

MR. SNOW: We didn't stop a cease-fire. I'll tell you what --

Q We vetoed --

MR. SNOW: We didn't even veto. Please get your facts right. What happened was that the G8 countries made a pretty clear determination that the guilty party here was Hezbollah. You cannot have a cease-fire when you've got the leader of Hezbollah going on his television saying that he perceives total war -- he's declaring total war. When they are firing rockets indiscriminately --

NOTE: Snow was right, the U.S. didn'’t veto a security council resolution on the Lebanon war, but rather on IsraelÂ’s offensive in Gaza, which has also destroyed the infrastructure and killed hundreds of civilians. It seems that the U.S. exerted its influence to prevent a resolution from even getting proposed. A list of all U.S. vetoes critical of Israel can be found here (not independently verified).

Q We had the United Nations --

MR. SNOW: Please let me finish. I know this is great entertainment, but I want to finish the answer. The point here is they're firing rockets indiscriminately into civilian areas. The Israelis are responding as they see fit. You will note the countries that disagree with the --

Q -- bombardment of a whole country --

MR. SNOW: -- that disagree with the government of Israel in terms of its general approach on Palestine, many of our European allies agree that Israel has the right to defend itself, that the government of Lebanon has the right to control all its territory, that Hezbollah is responsible and that those who support it also bear responsibility. There is no daylight between the United States and all the allies on this. They all agreed on it. This was not difficult --

Q At that point, why did we veto a cease-fire?

MR. SNOW: We didn't veto a cease-fire.

Q Yes, we did.

MR. SNOW: No, we didn't. There was -- there was no cease-fire. I'm sorry --

Q Wasn't there a resolution?

MR. SNOW: No.

Q At the U.N.?

MR. SNOW: No -- no. You know what you've -- I see what you -- what happened was that there was conversation about "a cease-fire" that was picked up by some of the microphones when some colorful language made its way into the airwaves yesterday. And the President was continuing a conversation he'd had earlier with Prime Minister Tony Blair about staging. Would we like a cease-fire? You bet, absolutely. We would love to see a cease-fire. But the way you stage is that you make sure that the people who started this fight -- Hezbollah -- take their responsibility --

How can you say the people who started this fight? Where is the start point? What year? Which event? And if Hezbollah started the fight, then why is Israel destroying Lebanon and Lebanese military outposts charged with reconstruction, not fighting? The exchange goes on:

Q There was no veto at the U.N.?

MR. SNOW: No, there hasn't been a resolution at the VN -- U.N., whatever it is. (Laughter.) There hasn't been -- I was in Germany too long. There's been no resolution at the U.N.

Q Why aren't we proposing a truce, no matter who is to blame? At least stop the killing.

MR. SNOW: Because it wouldn't stop the killing. What it would do is it would say to the killers, you win.

Q Might save lives.

MR. SNOW: No, I don't think so. And I'm glad you raised this. You do not want to engage in a cease-fire that has a practical -- when you say to the Israelis, you guys just stop firing, when you have Hezbollah saying, we're going to wage total war, because Hezbollah would read that as vindication of its tactics, and the idea that if you get the right sort of videos on television, and you get the right things going on, you can allow them to behave with impunity. Even though they are weakening the sovereign government of Lebanon, they are acting independently; even though they have --

Q And bombarding Lebanon --

MR. SNOW: Even though they have received --

Q -- wipes out infrastructure.

MR. SNOW: All right, this is hectoring now

So Mr. Snow doesn't think that a ceasefire would save lives? Oh, right, the important lives are already out. The foreign nationals have been evacuated and the country is now open for destruction. As my American friend who has been living in Beirut for the past four years and will not be evacuating with the rest of the lucky foreign-passport holders put it in an email to me yesterday:

We're fine, holding out ... I'm staying. Don't try to come. The roads are almost all bombed out now and getting more and more dangerous by the day. They're evacuating allforeigners by Sunday, and then i expect hell to rain down on us all.

Of course a truce would save lives! Over two dozen Israelis, Arab and Jewish, have been killed, and more than 300 Lebanese civilians, 100 of whom were children. Perhaps Bush and Snow et al. should spend some time online and look at some real pictures of the war in Lebanon to see what the mainstream media can't or won't show you. They gruesome, but real.

Israel bombs Byblos and Achrafiyeh, but Bush will let Israel bomb awhile longer before he gets involved

This is the basic gist of the main stories tonight on the news both television and internet. OK, actually, the bombing of a cement truck in Byblos actually didn't get that much coverage, especially after the "predominately Christian area" where "no Hezbollah militants" would be, was bombed this afternoon. First, about Byblos. That is where my family is and as of now they are all right. I can't say safe because there is no such thing as safe in this war as the rising civilian death toll attests to. I must depend to a certain extent on the news to know if my family is all right since Israel bombed many of the telecom towers rendering mobiles useless much of the time. Second, about Achrafiyeh. It is predominately Christian, and yes, I doubt there are any Hezbollah members residing there (although there are sympathizers, as there are throughout the country and thus in Parliament). The point being, I think the media must tread a very careful line when they report on Lebanon and the words and images they use to create distinctions and divisions. It would be a shame to see the Lebanese unity exhibited after the Hariri assassination obliterated and destroyed as is happening to the infrastructure of the country. A producer I interviewed today told me something disturbingly eloquent and depressing that an Egyptian actor said to her. He said that not only did Lebanon loose Hariri, his legacy is being wiped out as the country is bombed to smithereens.

Journalist & blogger released in Israel, Egypt

The Egyptian blogger Mohamed el-Sharqawi has been released from the Tora prison where he has been tortured and sodomized after his May 24 kidnapping. Bloggers in Egypt cover many of the protests and political activist activities that the mainstream media can't or won't cover. His release follows that of the well-know blogger Alaa a couple of weeks ago.

The Al Jazeera reporter who was detained by Israeli police was also released after several hours of questioning, following what Israel claimed were reports that gave information about the locations of where rockets had landed to help Hezbollah, even though all the other news stations were doing the same.

All is not well for Al Jazeera, however. The Arabist has a press release from Al Jazeera that says a member of a crew filming in Nablus was shot "in an apparent attempt to interupt the report." Al Jazeera is no favorite of any government, Western or Arab, having been kicked out of or Qatar's diplomats reprimanded in 14 of the 22 Arab countries, as well as its Iraq and Afghanistan bureaus bombed by American forces. I haven't independently verified this or been able to find mention on their website, but thought it should be read anyway:

Al Jazeera Crew Member Shot during Live Report

Doha, Qatar – July 19th 2006: Today, while an Al Jazeera crew was covering live the Israeli attack on Nablus in the West Bank, an Israeli military vehicle suddenly sped up towards Al Jazeera’s reporter, Jivara Al Budeiri, in an apparent attempt to interrupt the report. Al Jazeera’s technician Wael Tantous who was also part of her crew was subsequently shot and immediately rushed to hospital.

Since the start of the current war on Lebanon Al Jazeera crews have consistently been targeted by the Israeli authorities resulting in a constant hindrance and obstruction of their work.

Al Jazeera again emphatically expresses its strong denunciation and condemnation of this behaviour and reiterates its right to carry on its coverage with impartiality, objectivity and balance.

Seems to me that Al Jazeera, along with Iraq, is among one of the most dangerous places to working as a journalist.

Glimpses of protests

I didn't see any reports on the news about the protests held against Israel's war on Lebanon that were held in Washington, Toronto, France and elsewhere today. The only mention I found was in the Post,which reported at the very bottom of its B3 story about a Lebanese Cardinal praying for peace:

Last night, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee rallied in front of the White House, calling for an immediate cease-fire. Among the 23 groups co-sponsoring the event were the women's anti-war group Code Pink, the Arab American Institute and the Catholic nonviolence group Pax Christi USA. At least 400 people attended, according to the committee's spokeswoman, Laila Al-Qatami.

From what I've heard from friends back home in the US who are watching domestic CNN and reading the NYT, the coverage is not much better. If you know of news outlets or blogs about the protests please post them in comments.

What is the threshold for a protest making it into a major paper or news station? The NYT covers blogs, for gods sake, what about real people who are out on the streets? Unfortunately I haven't seen coverage on the blogoshpere either, although to be fair, I don't think you can expect people to search for the news they want to read. If the protest are only being covered on the blogs, what's wrong with the mainstream media outlets? They will argue, as the NYT did when I worked there, that they don't cover protests unless they are really major, like a million-man march or the million + who turned out to support abortion rights. But we, or rather, the mainstream media, consistently give equal space to official comments, which are then balanced against say, a million people protesting the war in Iraq, as if they are "equal" and therefore balance each other. Furthermore, new journalism is all about the "anecdotal lede" in which one person's story is told at the beginning of an article as an entre into a story about a larger trend. Well, apparently these protests have attracted hundreds, if not thousands, so why not cover them?

UPDATE: I'm listening to a Democracy Now! podcast that has covered the protests, including interview with protesters as well as quotes and perspective from "officials" and other priviledged voices.

Where is the coverage of protests against the war in Lebanon?

The blogs and online media are apparently the only ones covering the protests against the war in Lebanon. I found a blog that reported on the San Francisco protests where "A few hundred protesters chanted, beat drums and waved signs and flags Monday outside the Israeli Consulate during a rally organized by local Jewish groups to decry Israel's military actions in Lebanon and Gaza" and got an email yesterday about the protest planned for Washington D.C. I haven't yet seen news on the protests planned in Toronto, Canada and Washington, D.C., (Tues. 5-7 p.m. EST) but it's only noon there so I we'll see how the media does.

Do you think it's strange that the only protests the BBC has covered are those in Iran, thus feeding into the American rhetoric about Iran's support for Hezbollah. Yet there were also protests in Israel, though we never heard about those. According to an article in Ynet news:

Some 1,000 protestors joined Sunday evening in a rally in Tel Aviv to protest the IDF strikes in Southern Lebanon. Police have arrested three of the protesters claiming they were holding a demonstration without a permit. The protesters, who marched from Hen Boulevards toward King George Street, chanted slogans such as "Olmert agreed with Bush: War and occupation." "Stop the war monstrosity," and "Say no to the brutal bombardments on Gaza." They also accused Defense Minister Amir Peretz of murdering children in Gaza, and recited: "Peretz, don't worry, we'll be seeing you at The Hague."

The protests against Israel here in Egypt attracted a few hundred people but I never saw any media coverage of them. More are planned and a schedule of world wide protests can be found at http://www.lebanonexpats.org. I wonder how the media will cover these protests? It seems like it's so much more sensitive to protest Israel than the U.S.

The anti-Iraq war protests garnered international media attention throughout all media, from newspapers to television. Thus far, however, I have not seen any coverage on either the BBC or Arabic satellite channels of the protests over the war on Lebanon. I don't know why... perhaps because there are fewer people, they are less organized, or as some of my Arab friends believe, a conspiracy of the Jewish-owned media (I do not buy into this, although one journalists I interviewed here said that you wouldn't find articles attacking Israel when she worked for US News and World Report because the owner was Jewish and used the magazine as a lobbying tool... a very Shillerian/Chomskeysk explanation for how the ownership of the media outlet affects content).

Al Jazeera crew detained in Israel

This just in... Israel has detained the Israel/Palestine Al Jazeera bureau chief, according to the station's website. As far as I can tell no one else has reported this yet except Israel's Haaretz newspaper website. The article in Haaretz gives the context:

Police detained Al Jazeera crew members three times in twenty-four hours, the last being on Monday. The official cause for the brief arrests was suspicions against the crewmembers of reporting on the location of rocket hits in order to assist Hezbollah.

Other TV networks, including Israeli news services, made similar reports without suffering from police intervention.

On Monday police detained Al Jazeera manager Walid al-Omri for reporting of rocket hits in the Upper Galilee village of Kfar Yasif. Al-Omri was also detained late on Sunday.

But Al Jazeera's article lacks the context, why? Here is what is on it's website:

Walid al-Umari, the Arab satellite channel's bureau chief in the Palestinian Territories and Israel, was arrested on Monday by Israeli policemen, the pan-Arab television reported.

His identification papers were confiscated.

He and his crew were reporting from Kofor Yasif village, near the northern Israeli city of Akka on the Mediterranean coast.

Al-Umari was taken to a police station while the rest of the crew was told to stay in their cars.

Aljazeera is currently holding contacts with the Israeli police through Aljazeerae's legal adviser in the Palestinian territories to secure his release.

Israeli police briefly held on Sunday morning Aljazeera's correspondent in northern Israel, Elias Karam, near Haifa -the city that was repeatedly hit by Hezbollah's rockets.

Al-Umari was also detained by Israeli police on Sunday night for two hours after broadcasting from Haifa.

No explanation is given. Is Israel targeting pro-Arab media? It has bombed the Hezbollah station Al Manar multiple times, and now it has detained the most trusted and watched satellite station in the Middle East. Is this an effort to influence how the Arab world perceives the conflict? I don't think it will make much difference.

Later in the Haaretz article it appears that the Israeli radio news station Reshet Bet is inciting hatred and suspicion of the network, although I'm sure there was already a lot of that.

Al Jazeera said Israel Radio's Reshet Bet is inciting against the Qatar-based television network, after the arrest of Karam's team.

Reshet Bet reported Sunday morning that the Al Jazeera network aired live footage of the scene of Hezbollah strikes on Haifa, which the station's broadcasters said helps Hezbollah adjust the aim of the rockets it fires on Israel.

Al-Omri wrote a letter to Israel Radio manager Yoni Ben Menachem in response, saying, "The incident had no basis... We view this incitement as very grave and demand it end."

It seems more clear than ever that an important part of diplomacy and even the conduct of war involves the media both as actors and targets. I definitely plan to look into this more. For now, back to the news. Watching BBC, Al Manar, LBC, Future, Al Arabiya, Al Jazeera, checking NYT, WP, Reuters, etc.... no reports from Western sources on this issue yet.

A view from the ground - Beirut blogs

My Swedish friend who was doing research on sectarian in Lebanon and is now stranded in Beirut has started a blog to capture his eyewitness accounts of the "siege of Beirut." You can read it at www.beirutundersiege.blogspot.com. For the moment he's lucky because he's relatively "safe" on the AUB campus. My relatives are another matter. My sister-in-law and her family live right by the airport and managed to evacuate following the first Israeli bombing. They went to the north to stay with her parents, only to have the port town next to them bombed yesterday, indicating that even towns in the north, not considered Hezbollah stronghold, are not safe. Furthermore, they live right on the beach not to far from the marina so if a missile went astray... Anyway, they will try to evacuate to the mountains if the bombing stops long enough.

It's so strange being in the Middle East and watching Lebanon transform into a war zone overnight and feeling so close yet so far away. Part of me is glad I'm in Cairo and have access to all the Arabic news channels because I don't think I could stand having to watch CNN (US not international) as my primary source of news were I in the states. Waiting for that five minute top-of-the-hour summary of what's going on in the Middle East before switching to another topic I'm not interested in. I remember reading about a poll that showed more and more people turning to news outlets that conformed with their point of view and political persuasion. My experience over the past week hasn't me realize something that this poll didn't capture. I don't watch Al Manar and Future TV and LBC, all Lebanese-based satellite channels, instead of the other satellite station because I agree with their politics, but because they have the complete coverage I crave. Instead of showing the same images looped over and over throughout the day, they will just focus their cameras on different sections of the country, showing in images without the commentary of a correspondent, what is happening to Lebanon. Can you blame Arabs for wanting to watch Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya instead of the BBC or CNN? American policymakers call these stations biased and say that they spend too much time covering Iraq and Palestine to the exclusion of other news. At least they cover an important international issue instead of succumbing of the infotainment trend of American television news, where the breaking story on how to find nylons that don't run or avoiding the deathtrap of airbags degrades the news and the audience it assumes has no interest in international news. Part of me wants to go back to the US to be with my husband, while another part can't bear the thought of not having access to hundreds of Arabic channels. No matter where I flip I can find news on the war in Lebanon. I have to wait through the stories on BBC about North Korea and the wildfires in CA until they get back to news about Lebanon. With the conflict still new and raging, I am obsessed with watching the news and seeing the different perspectives of various channels. I only wish that Al Jazeera International was up and running so that English-speaking people could have the option of watching a different news source with a different point of view, different access to sources and locales, and different masters to which it is beholden.

Watching satellite coverage of Lebanon

For the past twenty-four hours I have been glued to the television, flipping between Western, Arab and Lebanese channels watching the coverage of the Israeli attacks on Lebanon. My husband called me yesterday, Thursday, from the states at 7 a.m. Cairo time to tell me that Israel had bombed Beirut International Airport. Since then I have been trolling the satellite channels watching the coverage and comparing the images and perspectives represented on the BBC, pan-Arab Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya, and Lebanese Future TV (Hariri’s channel), LBC, and Al Manar (Hezbollah-owned).

Throughout the day yesterday the BBC played the same loop of pictures showing the bombed-out airport in Beirut, the Israeli tanks along the southern border of Lebanon, and President Bush stepping out of his car to meet Germany chancellor Angela Merkel. Over and over the loop highlighted Bush’s trip and quoted his support for Israel’s right to defend herself while maintaining the integrity of the Lebanese democratic government. Of course this was better than the much of the online reporting on the New York Times web site and other American news outlets that initially used only the first part of the quote. Bush’s comment about defense, however, as far as I can tell, has not been investigated by the Western media. Except for Reuters online I have not seen Western media report on the bombing of civilian infrastructure in Lebanon including cell phone towers, a power plant, and an ambulance. All the media outlets reported on Israel’s attack on the Hezbollah-run Al Manar satellite channel. Similarly, during the war in Kosovo the media was seen as so strategic to promoting conflict that NATO justified bombing Belgrade TV station, an action probably considered unlawful under the Geneva Convention according to an article in Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. The initial Western articles I read online put the numbers of Israelis killed, 2, and the thousands who’ve evacuated northern Israel now that Hezbollah has started launching missiles as far as Haifa are, up front. I haven’t yet seen anything that has highlighted the thousands of Lebanese who have fled from their homes in the South as well as in Beirut. The roads out of Beirut to Syria are also closed because Israel bombed it and the traffic backed up for hours. Of course the Arabic media has not been any more balanced. For the most part the images are from Lebanon, probably because they are not allowed access to Israel or embedded with its troops. BBC has a guy right in with the Israeli troops on the border, so I’m sure the station is more inclined therefore to show such valuable footage. Al Manar seems to be little less than a propaganda tool for Hezbollah, although it too enjoys unparalleled access to Hezbollah and Southern Lebanon, including militants. Although I can’t understand most of what the people they interview, from what I can pick up they are clearly anti-Israeli, pro-Hezbollah, and very angry. Every so often a musical video montage of Kalashnikovs and militants plays for a few minutes in what can only be interpreted as lauding the Hezbollah cause.

Lebanon’s airport has now been struck two days in arrow, the roads out of the country to Syria bombed, and the sea blockaded. The tiny country has been cut off from the world, for Israel has even bombed the cell phone towers and a power plant in Southern Lebanon. Israel’s attacks on Lebanon have targeted civilian infrastructure and its economic welfare. Lebanon is dependent on $54 billion a year from tourism (BBC) and this is peak tourist season. Reports of Saudis seeking refuge in their embassy and desperately trying to find a way out and the lack of an airport testify to the fact that the tourist season is over, regardless of what happens over the next few days. There is no perfect solution to the biased perspective of the news except to seek a variety of sources from different countries and ownership structures. Because each media has a target audience the content and the way that content is portrayed – the images and words used, the perspective, the assumptions – vary.

Viva Corruption... Down with Freedom of the Press

"Viva Corruption... Down with Freedom of the Press" reads a sign held by
a journalist protesting the new press law expected to be passed this week.

A new press law that would legislate imprisonment and fines for journalists who are simply doing their job elicited strong condemnation from the media community in Cairo. 26 papers boycotted publishing their papers today and at 11:00 a.m.about 300 journalists gathered to protest the new law. They were outnumbered with ay least ten police, military, and plainclothes thugs for every protester. At a few minutes before 11 the police had already surrounded the journalists protesting the new press law, creating a nearly impenetrable wall through which the journalists covering the protest attempted to get their cameras. Hossam el-Hamlawy, an Egyptian journalist who who participated in the protests today, has a detailed description.

According to an Al Jazeera reporter the police did not understand the difference between those journalists protesting and those covering the protest and tried to force her to the protester area whereas she was attempting to cover the protest for the news channel. Thousands of riot police clad in their black uniforms and blood red arm-bands lined the perimeter of the Parliament building, reinforced by another line of plainclothes "police." The army green transport trucks with tiny mesh-windows through which peering eyes of riot police could be seen were parked all along the streets as far as Tahrir Square and the Egyptian Museum. Packed in like sardines, the riot police burst out of the truck and ran to take their place around the small pack of journalists holding signs condemning corruption- in Arabic and English to communicate with both Western and Arabic media. No journalists were assaulted or sexually abused or arrested like they have been in the past. Probably because, as one reporter I spoke with put it, the protesters were all journalists and the regime would get nowhere using the same tactics they use against less connected and media-savvy "indigents." Anyway, the government is not as worried about protesters as it is about cameras transmitting such images throughout the world.

Perception in the balance: freedom and respect in the media

Over the past few weeks I have had the opportunity to talk to Egyptians about their conceptions of freedom of the press and where the boundaries and responsibilities lie. Now granted these are for the most part Western-educated, fluent English-speaking elites who have been well-trained in the discourse on democracy and freedom. But they also consider themselves Egpytians, and often speak on behalf of Arabs. Two very important and striking impressions come out of these conversations. First, the distinction between “us” and “them”, second, the need for respect to temper freedom of expression. Ironically I came across this Doonesbury cartoon that seems to imply the same about America!

First, the distinction between "us" and "them." My friends speak about the Egyptian mindset, the Arab culture, "our culture and values" and "our repression." They also speak of the West, of the collective "you" who have subjugated and oppressed and humiliated "us" for so long (as a disclosure, I'm American and thus in the discourse on these subjects am made to represent America and the West). The othering of the West in the Arab mind and the Arab in the Western mind is thus not a construct only of Western academics and pundits, but is a fact in the minds of many people here in the Middle East (I'm going to generalize because I have had similar discussions with Lebanese, Jordanians, and Palestinians here in the region). When I have tried to argue that such a dichotomous distinction is a construction that exists in an individual's mind and becomes a social construction when many people believe and act as if such a distinction objectively exists. Yet my conversation partners cannot identify where the line of division between “us” and “them” lies, geographically or culturally. They say they agree it is socially constructed but nonetheless perceive it as immutable and insurmountable.

This brings me to the second interesting insight- the need for complete freedom of expression as long as there is respect for religion, if not culture and individuals. I spent an afternoon discussing what one of my friends in his early-thirties thinks about freedom of expression, primarily using the example of the Danish cartoons that insulted many Muslims and caused a worldwide uproar earlier this year (note: I have not yet met anyone who had seen the cartoons personally. They all have opinions, however). Although he professed that of course there should be freedom of expression, there must also be respect, especially for religion. And therefore there must be laws so that those who insult or disrespect can go before a judge and have his case heard. Who should make these laws? Society. But how, how does "society" make a law? Society, as far as I can tell, is simply a useful way of talking about bunches of people grouped according to their political, geographical, class etc. position. And how does "society" make a law? I would say through one of two ways- custom or the government. Either the government writes a law and puts it on the books as the rule by which those in a given area must abide, or the society creates cultural "rules" or norms that can be imposed and applied just as stringently and harshly as those codified by the government. People are judged and punished according to these cultural or normative laws just as they are legal laws. OK, but the point is, who decides when something is disrespectful? Who gets to determine respect? It's up to each individual and society. But what part of society? Those with power. Most likely, the government. And I don't want my government telling me what to respect and not to respect, and defining what constitutes respect.

There is another aspect of such a debate, and that is the assumption that a message - or a cartoon - must be interpreted in one single way, and as that intended by the creator of the message. That is, the reader or receiver has no agency because they are passive recipients of a message that is decoded and interpreted in a uniform way as intended. But we know this is not the way things work. Research and common sense has shown that people often engage in negotiated or oppositional readings. For example, a girl I met the other day who is here researching how Egyptians interpret what they read from different newspapers told me that for the most part people who read the state-run newspaper Al Ahram know they are getting the official version of events. Or as one journalist told me, they read it to find out what the government is thinking. Conversations with taxi drivers confirm this. Then they read Al-Masry Al-Yaum, an independent newspaper, or watch Al Jazeera for another perspective (or course the illiteracy rates are so high in Egypt that most people get their news from television or radio). I digress. The point is, respect is in the eye of the beholder. You can choose to read the Danish cartoons as insulting and blasphemous, or you can choose to read them as a pathetic attempt to incite hatred, or you can read them and laugh. The way that one receives information is not a forgone conclusion, they have agency and choice and can choose to get offended or not. This is my perspective, not my friends'.

Rather, those Egpytians, men I should specify though I'm not sure whether that makes a difference, with whom I've debated and discussed this topic have all believed that there is a difference between us and them and that because of this we must have laws that ensure respect of religion, culture, etc. The question I have for them, however, is does this requirement of respect run the other way? If there is an “us” and a “them”, then shouldn't those who want to place limits respect the values and beliefs of those who think that subjective restrictions are dangerous and pernicious not only personally but socially and politically as well?

Sedition & Emergency Laws: A look at media law developments in Washington and Cairo

This past week the Egyptian government approved a new press law that fails to convey the protection from imprisonment and pressure that journalists had sought. Under the new law journalists can still be jailed and fined for infringements such as insulting the president or his family, transgressing on the subject of religion or sex, or threatening social cohesion, etc. This same week a US congressman called for the Justice Department to look into whether the New York Times had broken sedition or treason laws for its publication of information about another secret spying program, this time of financail records, that is ostensibly part of the never-ending, unwinnable "war on terror." I found it ironic that both developments came in the same week from opposite sides of the political spectrum. The joint editorial by the executive editors of the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times highlighted one of the essential differences in the way the press operates in the US as opposed to Egypt, and the perception, of journalists and the public, about the role of the media. They wrote:

Our job, especially in times like these, is to bring our readers information that will enable them to judge how well their elected leaders are fighting on their behalf, and at what price...

Such a cost-benefit analysis is not part of the political and journalistic tradition in Egypt, nor most of the region for that matter. For this reason the army and military are off limits, protected by a "red line" as one editor I talked to put it, in the Egyptian media. Thus the budget, the leadership, and the role of these institutions cannot be investigated much less questioned. The editorial went on:

As Robert G. Kaiser, associate editor of The Washington Post, asked recently in the pages of that newspaper: "You may have been shocked by these revelations, or not at all disturbed by them, but would you have preferred not to know them at all? If a war is being waged in America's name, shouldn't Americans understand how it is being waged?"

Government officials, understandably, want it both ways. They want us to protect their secrets, and they want us to trumpet their successes. A few days ago, Treasury Secretary John Snow said he was scandalized by our decision to report on the bank-monitoring program. But in September 2003 the same Secretary Snow invited a group of reporters from our papers, The Wall Street Journal and others to travel with him and his aides on a military aircraft for a six-day tour to show off the department's efforts to track terrorist financing. The secretary's team discussed many sensitive details of their monitoring efforts, hoping they would appear in print and demonstrate the administration's relentlessness against the terrorist threat.

How do we, as editors, reconcile the obligation to inform with the instinct to protect?

The government of Egypt has used the same logic of the need to protect against terrorism and extremism to justify the new press law and the renewal of the emergency law for another two years. Like Bush's never-ending war on terror, Egypt is mired in a never-ending state of "emergency." Yet protection goes beyond physical security and must be conceived of as protection for freedom, liberty, civil rights, the constitution, etc. And when physical security and more ephemeral things like the freedom of expression and association are in contradiction, the cost benefit analysis must be done in a transparent way; that is, in the media.