IFES report on Arab media

IFES and the Arab Center for the Development of the Rule of Law and Integrity recently released a report on attitudes towards the media and Parliament in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Morocco.  The picture painted by the surveys of public and expert opinion are grim:  very few citizens in these four countries believe that the media is independent or effective, or that journalists can do their work without fear of punishment.   The most significant findings in the general public opinion surveys:

• 22% of Jordanians, 31% of Egyptians, 50% of Moroccans, and 77% of Lebanese felt that journalists "enjoy freedom of expression without fear of reprisal." 58% of Jordanians, 48% of Egyptians, 45% of Moroccans, and 16% of Lebanese felt that journalists did not.
• 25% of Egpytians, 24% of Jordanians, 52% of Moroccans and 68% of Lebanese felt that "the media is able to report openly on all types of issues".  48% of Egyptians, 52% of Jordanians, 21% of Lebanese, and 43% of Moroccans felt they could not.
• 57% of Egyptians, 58% of Jordanians, 46% of Lebanese, and 54% of Moroccans felt that "the media is influenced/pressured by government to a large degree."  It's interesting that the response by Lebanese on the issue of government influence is so much higher than on questions about intimidation. 
• 23% of Egyptians, 26% of Jordanians, 25% of Lebanese, and 41% of Moroccans felt that "the media provides you with impartial and balanced views." 
• 86% of Egyptians, 81% of Jordanians, 91% of Lebanese, and 90% of Moroccans felt that "reforms are needed to enhance the independence of the media." 

'Expert opinion' was even more negative than that of the general public.  79% of Egyptian 'media experts' felt that government censorship significantly hindered media independence, along with 65% of Jordanian 'media experts', 57% of Moroccan, and 35% of Lebanese.  57% of Egyptian experts, 70% of Jordanian experts, 43% of Lebanese experts, and 57% of Moroccan experts thought that journalists did not enjoy freedom of expression without fear of reprisal.  Only 13% of Egyptian experts, 17% of Jordanian and Moroccan experts, and 29% of Lebanese experts thought that "journalists enjoy sufficient legal protection to do their job."

Parliament gets even less respect, but since I'm mainly interested in the findings about media those are the ones I'll reproduce here.  Click through to the IFES power point slides [link to IFES main page fixed - no direct link available, sorry] for the rest of the findings.  The bottom line:  In these four allegedly moderate and allegedly democratizing Arab countries, the media continues to suffer from an intensely inhospitable environment.  I've long argued that promotion of media freedoms should be a primary focus of advocates of political reform.  This study offers yet more evidence for both the necessity of such reforms and its failures to date.

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Just a sidenote

The IPEF-link doesn't work.
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