MEPI media reform problems

The Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) has recently gotten involved in the media sector, which I strongly support as a key area for pushing democratic reform.  Free, critical domestic media is a key structural requirement for the evolution of any meaningful democratic progress.  As I've often written, satellite TV can't stand in for an engaged local media - al-Jazeera or al-Arabiya just aren't going to devote the kind of sustained, focused attention to, say, corruption cases in Jordan or Bahrain that domestic media can and should.  Democracy rests on the kind of transparency and accountability and public argument which only a free local press can provide.  And the more that these domestic media focus on issues of local concern, the less that they will focus on the kinds of region-wide issues in which the United States so prominently figures.

Media reform is therefore something which the United States could and should push. But one of the big problems has always been obvious:  while many Arab journalists desperately want to see these kinds of advances, many  are going to reject any association with the US.  According to this report, the latter has just happened in Bahrain and Morocco:

Moroccan Minister of Information Nabil Benabdallah told US Ambassador to Rabat, Thomas Riley, on 20 March that the American offer contradicts Moroccan laws that prevent local media from receiving direct or indirect subsidies from foreign parties. The same argument was presented by the Bahrain Journalists Association to reject the US initiative and to condemn any newspaper that accepted such support.

Moroccan Federation of Newspapers Publishers and the Moroccan Journalists Union have also turned down the MEPI grants program. According to the Moroccan French Language daily Aujourd’hui Le Maroc, the Journalists Union considers this initiative an action plan to manipulate the Arab press in the name freedom of the press and democracy. Morocco approved in 2005 a 4,5 million euros annual plan to modernize the press sector. The plan was reached between the government, journalists and publishers.

In Bahrain. Issa Al Shaiji, President of the Bahrain Journalists Association and editor-in-Chief of the “semi-official” newspaper Al Ayyam, met MEPI’s Regional Director, Hans Wechsel on 5 April to express his reject of the initiative. During the meeting, Wechsel explained that the aid is limited to technical and material support, and that it does not offer direct funding.

Al Shaiji said the program contradicts Bahraini laws and that it could lead to a loss of independence among newspapers. Anyone journalist accepting direct or indirect financial support from a foreign body can be fined up to BD 1,000 (USD 2,650) according to Bahraini laws.

Wechsel, who has assured that the US does not want to control the media in the Middle East through its MEPI program, said that hundreds of journalists in the region have already benefit from training programs financed by his country and others, and that Arab media outlets continue to be interested in these programs. He added that MEPI has been asked by media outlets in the region to enlarge its fields of support

Rejections by official syndicates or Information Ministry spokesmen are hardly surprising.  Representatives of the official media sectors in these countries are going to defend their turf and their perogatives.  But this initial pushback should be taken seriously as a real indicator of the burden of skepticism this kind of program has to get past.   

The key, it seems to me, is to scrupulously avoid "picking winners", trying to reward "good" content, or  leaving any particular media outlet open to the accusation of being an American mouthpiece.  Instead, the focus should be on trying to shape the wider institutional environment in ways that make it possible for independent and critical media to emerge.  That is how the MEPI program is conceived, at least as I understand it, but it has a  high hurdle to clear to convince anyone of that.

That's especially true because anything that MEPI does will be evaluated at least in part in light of the incredibly stupid and counter-productive efforts of the Defense Department.  The Lincoln Group's Iraqi payola scheme - which the DOD continues to defend and to execute even after its exposure - was almost tailor made to guarantee that real Arab journalists would be extra sensitive to anything which looks like an association with America, and to destroy the credibility of anyone who might be otherwise tempted to say positive things about the US.   

Why in the world would any Arab media outlet believe the US when it says it just wants to promote an environment supportive of press freedom when the Pentagon is openly planting propaganda stories in the Arab media?  Especially when the Pentagon psy-ops programs directed at the Arab media are working with a publicly reported budget of more than 100 times that of the MEPI media reform program.  They would have to be as stupid and as ill-informed as the Pentagon seems to think they are.  And they aren't. 

 

Comments

[The Lounsbury]

Father of Aardvarks:

You might find this blog comment relevant and interesting: http://www.blog.ma/obiterdicta/index.php?action=article&id_article=7625

It is, however, in French.

Regarding this issue, I am afraid I found your entry and the underlying commentary confusing.

First, as I understand MEPI, they operate by giving grants or financing to American institutions that then engage in the area of work defined. For example, I keep running into some kids from the International Republican Institute (IRI), some kind of democracy promotion NGO, who work on "party training" and other empty phrases.

As such it's not clear to me from these arties, who the real actors are. The article is terribly unclear as to the actual proposal. While experience with US public diplo efforts these past few years has led me to expect bufoonery combined with charmingly naive incompetence, in this instance I am not clear what is what.

Reading the Media Program Request for Pre-Application, that would be a direct grant - although my review of it suggests that few private media institutions are going to bother given it's soaked with bureaucratese.

Well, perhaps me pain meds are making me stupid.

[The Lounsbury]

An added thought.

In the area of media, perhaps the bright young things who work on these proposals should be required to submit it to an anonymous panel of otherwise well-educated US citizens in the guise of a foreign governments activity in the US to see if it passes the sniff test.

[Amy Hawthorne]

MEPI funds both American and Arab organizations.

[issandr El Amrani]

Incidentally, the Moroccan government has started its own subsidy program for the mostly privately-owned print media. The sums involved are actually decent.

[Amy Hawthorne]

Now, that's a great way to encourage [read: control] privately-owned, independent press - government subsidies!

[The Lounsbury]

Interesting, well, not my area in the end.

Regardless, the article and materials are confusing.

Direct USG financing of Media is a loser, not going to work. MEPI would be smarter throwing its money into a pool with some others to finance media. Maybe like a quasi Development Fund for media.

[aardvark]

L - yes, that's the idea behind the programs I know about, not direct funding of local media. Which is, I agree, a losing proposition.