Coverage of the Cairo protest

It's sometimes quite revealing to see how different media outlets cover the same story.  The anti-Mubarak protest in Cairo the other day offers a perfect vehicle, since it so directly and primally taps into the divide between the official Arab order - which views such anti-regime protests as distasteful, dangerous, and bordering on treason - and wider trends in Arab public opinion. 

Al Jazeera offered a picture of the protest showing hundreds of people and banners, with the headline: "Demonstration in Cairo against extending Mubarak['s regime]."

Al Jazeera's picture

Al Arabiya offered a picture of Hosni Mubarak, with the headline: "Tens of Egyptians demonstrate in Cairo against renewing [the term of] President Mubarak."

Al Arabiya's picture

To me, these two snippets nicely capture the difference between the two stations:  al Jazeera more in line with Arab public demands for change, highlighting and celebrating signs of public political action, and offering a powerful picture of peaceful Arab protest;  and al Arabiya more in line with the Arab regimes, showing a powerful, smiling Mubarak - referred to by his official title to give him even more stature - with the protests belittled ("tens" rather than the 300 cited on al Jazeera, the "several hundred" in al Quds al Arabi, or even 1000 cited by al Safir) and in effect disenfranchised by the choice to not show a picture.   

Al Arabiya is the station favored by the United States (it's the one Bush chose for his Abu Ghraib non-apology, for example), Al Jazeera the one demonized.   But when it comes to coverage of popular Arab demands for reform and change, which station seems more potent?

P.S.  I have no idea how Al Hurra covered it, since they can't be bothered to offer a real website; nor does it really matter, since nobody watches it.  It would be very interesting, however, to see how Al Hurra aligns itself on something like this - with "President Mubarak" or with "the Egyptian demonstrators".

Comments

[Nur al-Cubicle]

Don't want to go too far afield here, but having protested the war back in front of the Federal Building in February '03, the local Gannett-owned media gave us short shrift indeed. 1500 people is big deal here in western NY, but you'd think we were a dozen wraiths. In the column on page 12 where the protest was covered the next day...all the verbiage was devoted to literally the one-dozen freepers on the other side of the street. The paper interviewed Billy-Bob but our multiethnic crowd of professionals, academics, church groups, students, activists for equality, the Rochester Raging Grannies, physicians and psychologists....nada! zero! zilch! Course the same was true for the censored march in NYC. But the carrier "Mission Accomplished" captive audience pageant, woo, live up to the minute coverage, rebroadcasts, etc. etc. etc.

The sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander...sorry Egypt. But hooray for A-J.

[Martin Kramer]

Well, maybe, Abu Aardvark. The top picture was a syndicated photo by Agence France-Presse (I saw it on the BBC site). You can only post it on a news site if you pay for it. Maybe Al-Arabiyya doesn't take AFP syndication. Pictures of Mubarak are free.

[the aardvark]

Oh, Martin - why would you want to ruin a perfectly clever bit of interpretive analysis with such a mundane fact?

Anyway, I still think I'm right about the analytical point. Al Arabiya has been pretty clear from its inception that it would be more sensitive to Arab rulers than al Jazeera (both Saleh al Qullab and Abd al Rahman al Rashed have said so in published interviews), and it seems like there's a Saudi prince (or Iyad Allawi) being interviewed on al Arabiya every other day. Free photo or no, the juxtaposition does reflect some clear choices being made about how to cover political events.

[praktike]

I'd be interested to see the Muslim Brotherhood's take on all this. Can I beg a rough summary of this?

http://www.ikhwanonline.com/Article.asp?ID=9772&LevelID=2&SectionID=0

[Stacey]

Well, being in Cairo right now, my view was that the al-Hura coverage fell somewhere in between the two. This makes sense, since al-Hura is a little touchy about its image here, and overt US policy (even in the face of contrary action) is in line with the terms of the protest.

As an aside, does anyone know the affiliation of Middle East Online? I was looking at its coverage yesterday, and thought it had the best picture. I just don't know how to add it to my comment post, and it doesn't fit with the theme of my blog. Anyhow, here's the link:

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=12127

Any idea on the source for this website? Friends have actually posited that it might run by al-Hura because of some its graphics.

[Jamal]

I don't think ME Online is Al-Hurra connected, I've read the site for quite some time and have found it certainly doesn't have that sort of editorial line. They seem to source a fair amount off of AFP, but also what appears to be a lot of unique material. Whether from another wire that's not as widely distributed or their own reporters I don't know. But they are good and presented info you frequently don't find elsewhere. Also note that their English and Arabic sites often have unique content separate from each other as well.