Abu Aardvark

Al-Arabiya: Death Makers

The Saudi TV station al-Arabiya has recently started airing a regular program on terrorism, with the neutral title "Death Makers."   

The most recent episode explores the psychological reasons that youth turn to terrorism.  Previous episodes include a profile of bin Laden, Zawahiri and Zarqawi, and a discussion of how terror groups acquire new recruits.  It should give a nice warm fuzzy feeling to those eager to see the Arab media take on the issue of terrorism and denounce extremism.  It should help al-Arabiya demonstrate to American officials its efforts in the war of ideas against terrorism and jihadism.  It fits like a glove within the general official Saudi ideological campaign against extremism, and serves an American interest in putting anti-jihadist programming out on to the Arab airwaves on a station which people actually watch.  Who could object?

Well... to make room for "Death Makers", al-Arabiya canceled Hisham Milhem's program Over the Sea.

Milhem lacks Salha's pretty face, to be sure.  But his program represented one of the only, and best, Washington-based talk shows devoted to bringing the American political debate to the Arab public, demystifying American politics and giving Americans direct access to an Arab audience.  Milhem routinely hosted a wide range of American guests, allowing Arabs to hear American differences and disagreements as they really exist.  Recent guests included Jon Alterman, Shibley Telhami, Ambassador David Welch, Amr Hamzawy, Edmund Gharib, Jim Hoagland, Richard Armitage, and Kenneth Pollack.   Al-Jazeera still offers Hafez al-Mirazi's low-key and informative From Washington, but those who distrust al-Jazeera might be concerned about that station having an effective monopoly on presenting American political debates to the Arab public. 

Milhem's show also represented one of al-Arabiya's only remaining live political talk shows - the lifeblood of what my book calls the "new Arab public."   I've argued often that the talk shows on Arab satellite TV have had a revolutionary effect on Arab discourse.  Not just by shattering taboos, although this did matter, but by presenting contention and diverse opinion as not only acceptable but as desirable.  Live, unscripted political argument defied the preferences of states to police the "red lines" of permissible political discourse.  Not every one of these talk shows offers an edifying spectacle. Many of them give platforms to obnoxious voices or disintegrate into screaming matches.  Others don't, and offfer arenas for very thoughtful political debate.   But in the aggregate, I see these talk shows as a vital force pushing the Arab world towards a more pluralist environment, contentious if not necessarily liberal.  As such, I see them as a key force pushing towards democratic trends in the region. 

Al-Arabiya from the start positioned itself as the antidote to al-Jazeera, and its rivalry with the Qatari station is arguably its only real reason for existing.  While its competition with al-Jazeera is often presented as its representing a liberal and moderate alternative, that has always been misleading.  It would be more accurate to say that it represented the views of its Saudi patrons, and more generally the pro-American Arab regimes (what we like to call the 'Axis of Pro-American Dictators').   So, it was more overtly hostile to al-Qaeda (in accord with the Saudi post-May 2003 ideological offensive against al-Qaeda), more supportive of the American project in Iraq (serving for instance as an agent of Iyad Allawi's doomed electoral campaign), more hostile to Hezbollah in the recent Israel-Lebanon war.   As a result it became the network of choice for most American officials who wanted to address an Arab public (Bush after Abu Ghraib, Condi Rice, John Bolton, even Rumsfeld).   It is also the outlet of choice for most pro-American heads of state:  King Abdullah of Jordan, Hosni Mubarak, and a variety of Foreign Ministers and other establishment politicians routinely grace al-Arabiya with interviews, while al-Jazeera tends to offer civil society activists, intellectuals, and other political opposition figures (along with Ali Abdullah Saleh just before the election, for some reason). 

But even as it pushed these pro-American positions, and preached a mantra of responsible journalism, it proved ever less open to live political talk shows.   Emad Dib's live call-in show Istifta Ala al-Hawa ran its last show in September 2005, Montaha Ramhi's Bil-Mursad ran its last program in January 2005, and now Milhem's has gone.  Giselle Khoury still has her big interviews with famous people, Turki al-Dahkhil interviews some really interesting people, and Hossein Shobakshi is good if wasted on a business show.   But for the most part al-Arabiya's programs are ever more dominated by the pre-packaged and pre-recorded.  Sometimes interesting or informative, but not a public sphere. I often disagreed with Milhem's political opinions, but at least he tried to offer a "better" public sphere than the al-Jazeera shows which he criticized.  That makes its cancelation a big loss for the Arab public sphere. 

Al-Arabiya no doubt had its reason to replace Milhem's show with "Death Makers" (ratings or whatever) and probably doesn't understand itself as pursuing an "anti- public sphere" policy.  (Probably.)   But it's an interesting theoretical and practical proposition to consider. How  is jihadism best combatted, and democratic ideas best spread?  Through pre-packaged programs disseminating a particular point of view from the top down?  Or by providing open forums in which various ideas hash it out in unpredictable, uncontrollable, and sometimes unpalatable public argument?   I don't think the answer is obvious, even though I obviously incline towards the latter.   But it's a question worth thinking about for those trying to get public diplomacy right. 

Al-Arabiya closed in Iraq

I'm intrigued by the reports that Prime Minister Maliki has ordered the closure of al-Arabiya's Baghdad office.  Al-Arabiya says that the basis for the order was that it was "fomenting communal strife."  This would seem to refer back to the Saudi government's general pushing of an anti-Shia line in recent months because of its hostility towards Hezbollah and Iran.  But I'm not sure of the proximate cause for a closure in Iraq - was it something al-Arabiya reported, or is it a way of striking at the Saudis for some reason?  I'm going to try to find out- particularly since al-Arabiya has relentlessly positioned itself as the moderate, pro-American alternative to al-Jazeera -  highlighting "moderate", pro-American, and often pro-regime voices, and downplaying coverage of populist issues like Palestine.  I'd  go so far as to say that it has emerged in the last few years as the de facto American broadcasting effort in the region (doing what al-Hurra was meant to do, but with an audience).  Certainly, it's the outlet of choice for those rare administration officials who want to reach a wide Arab audience but hate al-Jazeera and don't want to waste their time on al-Hurra (John Bolton is the latest American official to show up for an extended chat on al-Arabiya). 

Kuwait and the Arab agenda, again

I'm keenly interested in the fact that right now (2:45 EST) al-Jazeera is dedicating its feature prime time "Behind the News" show to the Kuwaiti elections.  (The Palestinian-Israeli crisis is still dominating the news programming, though.)   This is especially interesting because yesterday the Gaza crisis drove Kuwait's elections off the news agenda.... and even more interesting because al-Jazeera chose to feature the Kuwaiti elections today rather than bin Laden's new videotape.  Fascinating!   Remember what I wrote this morning about how a crowded news agenda makes it hard for bin Laden to dominate the agenda anymore?   Could anything better symbolize this shift than bin Laden getting trumped by an election on al-Jazeera's signature program?  [Cynics might say that this snub is just how al-Jazeera punishes al-Qaeda for not giving it an exclusive on the video.  Maybe - who's to say?]   

But note that focusing on elections and snubbing bin Laden does not necessarily mean a "pro-American line" - a mistake too often made by American partisans who assume an alignment between pro-democracy and pro-American / pro-Bush which just doesn't really exist in the Arab world.    Immediately following the show on the Kuwaiti elections on al-Jazeera came an episode of Sami Haddad's More Than One Opinion talk show focusing on the revelations about the SWIFT program and its implications for terrorist financing.

There is nothing anti-American about discussing this story, which is clearly newsworthy and relevant.  And al-Jazeera invited a former American diplomat to offer an American viewpoint, and Haddad let him speak first.  But there's no question that a discussion about the SWIFT program is not what the White House would like Arabs to be talking about right now.  It isn't going to make America look good in Arab eyes (nor should it) - the Hamdan decision would actually be a much better conversation piece, since it might be presented as evidence that the American system eventually works to correct its most egregious errors.   It's worth mentioning that one of the topics previewed in Haddad's introduction of the show was the conservative assault on the New York Times over the revelations, and what this says about American hypocrisy in its defense of a free media. 

Kuwaiti election results

The Kuwaiti opposition did well in yesterday's elections, winning somewhere between 34-36 seats (depending on how you count "opposition").  The most interesting thing about the election was not that women voted, or that they evidently voted primarily for the reformist and Islamist trend, or that none won (all three are quite common in the Arab world), but that Islamists and liberals seem to have cooperated in an effective coalition.   The biggest winner was the Islamists (again, not a surprise), which al-Watan pegs at 18 seats (out of 50) [update:  al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya both count 21 Islamists.  Beats me who is right - any Kuwait-watchers out there want to help out?].   The biggest loser was the pro-government forces, who lost 8 seats - down to only 15.   I'll be curious to see how this plays out over the next few weeks.  Al-Watan says that the government is expected to tender its resignation in the wake of the election, which would offer an early test of how the new Islamist-reformist majority is going to deal with the political system.

Princes, Clerics, and Censors

The Committee to Protect Journalists recently released an outstanding report on the Saudi media.   

It opens with an account of the appearance of the daily newspaper Shams, partly owned by Prince Turki al-Faisal, launched in 2005 aimed at a young demographic and pushing against some of the traditional red lines.  Shams got shut down for running the cartoons of Mohammed for a couple of weeks, after "hard-line clerics and religious figures protested Shams’ liberal approach and urged authorities to take action. A compromise worked out through the Information Ministry allowed the paper to reopen if it dismissed its 32-year-old editor-in-chief, Batal al-Qaws. He was fired in late February."
The CPJ report notes both positive and negative developments:

Today, Saudi papers publish news and opinions that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago, even as government and religious officials employ an array of behind-the-scenes controls to curtail enterprising coverage that offends the government or important religious constituencies.
...
Following the seismic events of September 11, 2001, when terrorists attacked the United States, and May 12, 2003, when suicide bombers struck Riyadh and killed more than two dozen people, the country’s bottled-up media demonstrated periods of boldness and addressed once-taboo topics such as crime, unemployment, women’s rights—and, most significant, religious militancy. Today, Saudi columnists publish probing articles about religious extremists’ use of summer camps to indoctrinate Saudi youth, while commentators argue that women should have the right to drive cars. The government has allowed at least one new daily publication to appear on newsstands, and newly licensed dailies are said to be on the way. Applications for visas and long-term accreditation for foreign journalists, once exercises in futility, are being granted to international news organizations.

But progress has been uneven and limited, and the margin of freedom is one that “is given and taken away,” said Khaled al-Dakhil, a liberal academic whose columns for the Saudi-owned daily Al-Hayat of London were abruptly banned by the government after he questioned official reform efforts. Independent writers point to a web of formal and informal restrictions that prevent them from covering central social and political issues of the day.

The report identifies three major problems:

• Government officials dismiss editors, suspend or blacklist dissident writers, order news blackouts on controversial topics, and admonish independent columnists over their writings to deter undesirable criticism or to appease religious constituencies.
• The country’s conservative religious establishment acts as a powerful lobbying force against enterprising coverage of social, cultural, and religious matters. The multilayered religious sector includes official clerics, religious scholars, the religious police, radical revivalist preachers, and their followers.
• Compliant government-approved editors squelch controversial news, acquiesce to official pressures to tone down coverage, and silence critical voices.  Independent reporting on politics remains nearly absent from the Saudi press, CPJ’s analysis found. While newspapers occasionally criticize the performance of low-level government ministries or public institutions, critical coverage of the royal family, friendly foreign governments, rampant corruption, regional divisions, and oil revenue allocations remain off-limits. Debate over major foreign policy positions and the concerns of the country’s disenfranchised Shiite minority are also considered banned topics.

It sums up the state of the Saudi media like this:

Although newspapers are privately owned, the state exerts tremendous influence over what is reported. The government approves the appointments of editors-in-chief, a process that journalists say is done behind closed doors with the oversight of Prince Nayef bin Abdel Aziz, the powerful interior minister. In practice, though not by law, newspapers require the financial or political backing of a member of the royal family. Unlike in other parts of the region, “opposition journalism” simply doesn’t exist in Saudi Arabia. While some columnists have criticized low-level ministers, news coverage is typically devoid of anything reflecting negatively on the royal family, high-ranking officials, and the country’s religious clerics and institutions.

Top editors and most journalists view themselves as defenders of the ruling Al-Saud family, and government officials ensure allegiance by applying behind-the-scenes pressure—issuing directions on sensitive stories, banning coverage of certain topics, and taking punitive actions against journalists. Over the past decade, CPJ research shows, dozens of editors, writers, academics, and other media critics have been suspended, dismissed from their jobs, or banned from appearing in the Saudi press. The actions came by government order, the intervention of religious leaders, or at the initiative of editors. Other journalists have faced detention, questioning by security authorities, and travel bans.

The CPJ report  presents numerous examples of columnists and reporters who were fired, banned, or worse.   

• Abdel Mohsen Mosallam, who wrote poems critical of the judiciary ("Mosallam’s editor was dismissed, reportedly at the order of the interior minister;Mosallam himself was detained and banned from writing in the Saudi press."
• Jamal Khashoggi, whose newspaper attacked clerics for condoning terrorism ("Al-Watan’s Khashoggi was the most notable casualty; he was forced to step down on the order of then-Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdel Aziz. Interior Minster Nayef rebuked editors for articles criticizing Wahhabism, and, over the course of several months, government agents warned editors and writers to steer clear of religious taboos, the religious establishment, and reforms being discussedby intellectuals."); 
• Hussein Shobokshi, who wrote in favor of an accountable government with greater rights for women ("He was quickly blacklisted from the Saudi press for the next year and his newly launched talk show on the Saudi-owned satellite broadcaster Al-Arabiya was cancelled. His editor told Shobokshi that he was banned, but the editor didn’t say why or by whom.  “The ban was so ugly I could not write anywhere,” Shobokshi said in an interview in the Saudi Red Sea port of Jeddah. “It taught me how things are run in this country.” The case is emblematic of the behind-the-scenes pressures facing outspokenSaudi journalists. Shobokshi’s ban was never announced, and there was no documentation that the journalist ever saw. Although many bans are imposed by fax from the Ministry of Information, journalists said, others are handled with simple phone calls from religious or political officials.
• Wajeha al-Howeidar, who wrote about women's rights ("in 2003 Saudi newspapers abruptly stopped publishing her articles. “I learned while I was on vacation. Friends said, ‘We heard you were banned,’”... The ban was triggered, though, by a May 2003 piece that described the case of an abused Saudi teen who took photos of his bruises with the intention of eventually suing his father. His father had gone unpunished, she wrote.... The Information Ministry, according to al-Howeidar, approached her last summer and offered to lift the ban if she traveled abroad as a goodwill ambassador and spoke about advances in women’s rights in Saudi Arabia. She refused.)
• Hassan Malaki ("permanently blacklisted for questioning Wahhabism")
•       Mansour al-Nogaidan, who wrote an op-ed in the New York Times criticizing the Saudi educational system ("summoned to a five-star hotel in Riyadh for questioning by intelligence agents... Agents phoned him within days with the terse message that his writings had “offended the state.” He was detained for five days by the mubahith, and editors at Al-Riyadh wouldn’t publish his columns for several months.)

There is a lot more in this extremely well-done report by Joel Campagna.  It may help to explain why so many of us are so deeply skeptical of the Saudi owned media, including al-Sharq al-Awsat and al-Arabiya, even if they are currently following a broadly pro-American line.

      

talk to al-Jazeera, go to jail

Al-Quds al-Arabi reports that a Saudi citizen has been arrested for calling in to the al-Jazeera live call-in show Minbar al-Jazeera discussing the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.   Al-Quds didn't report what he said, so I went to the transcript to find out.   Right away, I noticed that he gave his full name, making it pretty easy for the Saudi police to track him down.  He mourned Zarqawi's death and claimed eventual victory for Islam based on the promise of the Quran.  But most of his remarks, and the host's follow up questions, called on Arab leaders to rethink their approach to the jihadist movement and to consider dialogue and negotiations with it - because their current approach hurt them and their people more than it hurt the ideas of the jihad.  I didn't see anything in his remarks which would constitute a call to violence or a direct threat to the Saudi state, but he was clearly sympathetic to the jihadist movement.

Mona and the Saudi media

Mona Eltahawy is a fairly well known Arab liberal columnist.  Her weekly column in the Saudi-owned Arab paper al-Sharq al-Awsat condemned Islamist violence and Arab state repression (especially in her native Egypt).   Those columns often ended up being rewritten for American newspapers like the Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, the International Herald Tribune, and others (her greatest claim to fame, of course, was sharing a stage with Abu Aardvark in Doha - hard to top that!).

Doha Debate, January 31, 2006

Mona's last article, a moving tribute to the murdered Atwar Bahjat, appeared in al-Sharq al-Awsat on February 28.  What happened?  Turns out that she's evidently been banned from publishing in al-Sharq al-Awsat.  It isn't clear why - perhaps Egyptian pressure?  Perhaps she offended the wrong Saudi?  She wasn't officially told she was banned nor given any reason, but there you go.  She's just gone.   

Why do I bring this up?  Not because writers getting banned from Arab newspapers is unusual - quite the opposite.  Not because I agree with everything she writes -  I don't.  Not just because she's a friendly acquaintance of mine and an Abu Aardvark reader (okay, maybe a little because of that, but only a little).  And not because this ban will prevent her from writing -  in fact, she's already started a weekly column at maktoob.com which blasts the Egyptian regime yet again for its repressive ways.   

I bring it up because it highlights one of the big concerns that I, and many others, have about the putatively "liberal" Saudi media.  Al-Sharq al-Awsat used Mona to present itself as the liberal (and pro-American) Arab daily, especially to English-speaking audiences.  When al-Sharq al-Awsat launched its English-language edition last year, her columns were almost always chosen for translation (along with former editor Abd al-Rahman al-Rashed and current editor Tareq Alhomayed and a very carefully selected handful of others).   But Mona's dismissal sharply highlights the superficiality and the potential transience of this "liberalism."  Offend the wrong constituency, and you're gone.

Same thing in the television arena.  Al-Sharq al-Awsat's television twin al-Arabiya similarly presents itself as the liberal (and pro-American) alternative to al-Jazeera, and is rewarded with frequent appearances by American officials and by Arab leaders alike (see here for a refresher on the Saudi role in al-Arabiya).  But anyone who remembers the deathly dull, politically controlled, largely Saudi-owned Arab media of the days before al-Jazeera will recognize the danger signs.   A genuinely liberal media would be a great benefit to the Arab world... but moves like Mona's dismissal, combined with a long, long history of Saudi control of the Arab media, make it difficult to trust Saudi Arabia to be its custodian.  That's one of the reasons why al-Jazeera, for all its flaws, is such a vital force:  it allows debates and coverage of issues the Saudis don't want touched.

UAE TV market

A BBC survey (carried out by the market research company PARC and managed by MORI) of the media market in the UAE has these findings on TV preferences (thanks to AH for the tip):

MORI's survey of TV audiences reported that Abu Dhabi Sat and Al Jazeera are the most popular TV stations in the UAE, with 40 per cent of those surveyed watching these channels on a weekly basis.... The survey showed that Al Jazeera was deemed the most trustworthy news source by 70 per cent of those who stated they watch the channel. Radio Sawa was trusted by 9 per cent of those polled who said they listened to the station. Figures also showed that Al Jazeera was deemed to provide the most unbiased, objective and relevant news to viewers in the UAE.

Al-Jazeera's strong position in the UAE isn't new.  I'm surprised that neither Abu Dhabi TV nor Dubai TV puts in a more impressive showing, though.  Al-Arabiya is notable for its absence, though this report doesn't include anything other than first place so hard to know how it placed relatively.   I trust nobody is surprised by the absence of al-Hurra, though the 9% trustworthy score for Radio Sawa is rather shockingly low. 

Media trust

A poll just released by GlobeScan for the BBC found that al-Jazeera is by far the most trusted news source in Egypt (not "in the Arab world", as al-Jazeera itself spun it) - with 59% of an urban-only sample naming it in an open-ended question about the most trusted source for news.   Here's the Egypt summary:

Among urban Egyptians, the most important sources of news in a typical week are television (mentioned first by 72%), newspapers (17%), and the Internet (6%). Men have a greater preference than women for newspapers (24% to 10%), while women are more likely to have television as their main news source (81% compared to 61% of men).

Due largely to the influence of Al Jazeera, Egypt is unique in this survey in that its trust for international television: 77 percent have a lot or some trust in it. There are also more than three-quarters (77%) who trust national television, 68 percent who trust local newspapers, 65 percent national/regional newspapers, and 64 percent each of public radio and friends and family. There is little (28%) trust for international newspapers, while 30 percent trust blogs and 32 percent news websites.

Specific news sources mentioned spontaneously by Egyptians as being trustworthy were Al Jazeera (mentioned by 59%), Channel 1 Egypt TV (12%), Al Ahran (6%), Al Akhbar (5%), Nile News (4%), Yahoo and the CNN website (each 2%), Google and BBC World Service radio (each 1%).

Egyptians (43%) are the most likely to say they trust the international media more than their national media. They also have higher than average faith in the media to report news accurately (73% agree it does), although 61 percent agree that the media is too focused on Western values and concerns. Egyptians are among the most likely to have turned away from a media source due to a loss of trust, with 40 percent reporting having done so.

Very interesting - certain media sources (al-Hurra, say, or al-Arabiya) are notable by their absence, even with the important caveat that this is a survey of urban Egyptians, not of "the Arab world."   We certainly wouldn't want to do something like extrapolate survey findings from one country to the entire region!    

One other finding of interest: in a question asked in all 10 surveyed questions about most trusted brands, "Al Jazeera (23%) came next [after Time and Newsweek] but it also had the highest percentage of people (19%) expressing no trust or not much trust in providing the information they want." The BBC scored the highest across the board [48%] as a trusted brand... raising the interesting conundrum of how much trust to place in a BBC-commissioned poll that finds the BBC the most trustworthy!

Al-Arabiya theory and practice, again

On the "al-Arabiya in theory and in practice" question raised in Shadid's article yesterday, I'd add this image from today (taken from al-Arabiya's web site):

That's a video of the dead body of Mohammed al-Zubaydi, a former Iraqi prime minister, being kicked around on video.  The news value of "exclusive footage" of unidentified people (presumably Iraqi police) kicking the face of the corpse of a former Iraqi senior official?   Seems pretty sensationalist to me, and in pretty poor taste too.   

This doesn't surprise me - it's what I'd expect from a TV station fighting for market share in an intensely competitive environment. It's mainly interesting in relation to al-Arabiya's PR, which portrays it as the responsible, objective alternative to al-Jazeera, valiantly struggling to raise the standards of the Arab media.  The differences can be exaggerated.