Recently appointed managing director of al Arabiya, sometime Aardvark foil Abd al Rahman al Rashed, was interviewed recently (warning: link in Arabic) on al Arabiya about Abd al Rahman al Rashed's appointment to al Arabiya. Got that?
It's fascinating that Rashed felt the need to give this interview to defend and explain his appointment - it suggests that the rumours and doubts about the political motivations behind it were sufficiently widespread that they had to be addressed head on.
What does Rashed have to say? Well, he denies all the reports that his appointment to run al Arabiya was motivated by politics, and that he was brought in to overhaul the station's policies or coverage. He says that MBC (the owners) just wanted to draw on experienced Arab media talent, and that meant him. As for a political change, meaning that the station was meant to move to the right, no. Was it to change the station's approach to Arab issues? No. And he wasn't assigned to bring about 'fundamental change' to the station - since it's only existed for 16 months, how 'fundamental' could a change be?
Instead, Rashed claims that his only mandate for al Arabiya was 'professionalism', no more and no less. But of course, that means more than it sounds like, since 'professionalism' has been a code word in the attack on al Jazeera. In this context, 'professionalism' should be taken to mean toning down the rhetoric, cutting back on footage of casualties, and showing more deference to American (and official Arab) sensitivities.
Why else would Rashed have been hired than to implement such a program? In the interview, Rashed repeated his harsh criticism of the performance of the Arab media during the Iraq war - criticism which allegedly got him this job. And since al Arabiya was included in that criticism at the time, his pursuit of 'professionalism' would seem to be doing exactly the three things he denied above - moving the station in a more conservative direction, changing its approach to Arab issues, and changing the profile of the station in the television marketplace.
I really don't mean this to sound like I'm criticizing Rashed here, even if it sounds like it. Putting a harsh critic of the Arab satellite television stations in charge of one is an interesting experiment, like putting Eric Alterman in charge of CNN (or putting Angel in charge of Wolfram and Hart). It will be interesting to see how it plays out... because, as Rashed says in the interview, ultimately the public will decide with their remote controls which stations they prefer. For now, al Jazeera is still far and away dominant, and during Rashed's editorial tenure at Al Sharq al Awsat that paper's circulation reportedly collapsed due to his pro-American line. But maybe things will be different now - certainly the Bush administration is pulling for its success (Colin Powell gave an interview to al Arabiya during his recent swing through the Middle East, but not to al Jazeera).
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