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Al-Jazeera Presents Arab Point of View, Not Bias

Samer Zouehid - 6/9/2005

The Arabic language news channels have come under fierce criticism recently from the American administration for their portrayal of events in the Middle East, especially in Iraq. The criticism seems to be getting louder and louder, and it appears as if a full-fledged campaign by different parts of the American administration to discredit Arab media stations such as Al-Jazeera and Al Arabiya are underway.

There have been claims of alleged documents being found in Baghdad, which state that Al-jazeera employees were working for Saddam Hussein. In a completely unrelated case, but the similarities are uncanny in the fortune of the accusers, a document was found in a ministry building in Iraq, which alleged that former Labour MP George Galloway, a staunch opponent of the war, was receiving money from the former regime under the guise of his charity. The charges were later dropped, as the claims could not be substantiated. In Spain, Tayser Alouni, an Al-Jazeera correspondent, was accused by the Spanish government of financially aiding Al-Qaeda. These allegations have come along with criticism from their reporting governments, the most damming of them from Donald Rumsfeld, US Secretary Of Defense. In a recent news conference, Rumsfeld lashed out at Al-Jazeera's portrayal of events in Iraq, and even went as far as saying their journalists get phone calls from insurgents who want them to film an attack that is about to take place.

The one-sided criticism being poured out against Arabic news stations suggest the coalition are satisfied with the coverage of the situation in Iraq by major networks in America and England. The heart of the issue for the American administration is objectivity, which according to them is lacking in the coverage by the Arabic-language news stations. The term objective implies that coverage of an event should be real; real in the sense that personal feeling or opinions do not influence the report. Yet, can coverage of a particular event ever be objective? With reference to Edward's Said work on objectivity in the media, it is obvious that the same accusations made at the Arab media about one-sided reporting can be said of the American media. Said, who was Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, was a unique mixture of scholar and political activist, and his work has influenced many scholars and aided them in their analysis of relationships between the West and the East.

The crux of Said's argument is that despite the enormous number of newspapers, magazines, television and radio stations, as well as the freedom to express alternative views, the American media as a whole conform to a certain view when analysing American foreign policy. There is no big conspiracy to be uncovered here, as the essence of his logic and argument is so shockingly simple that one starts to question the very idea of a free and independent media.

We do not live in a natural world, in the sense that things like newspapers and news programmes are not natural; they are a result of human will. Said claims these corporations that create newspapers and news channels are made up of historical and social circumstances that help forge the identity of these Institutions. The coverage we see from media stations are not haphazard events, they are consciously selected events. This implies that journalists have the ability to choose and influence what is news and how it should be portrayed, and to adopt certain views and representations of reality over others. Therefore, the creation of news in society, which has a tremendous impact on people's opinions, operates under certain rules within a framework that gives the process of reporting a distinguishable and singular identity. The recent coverage of the prisoner abuse of Iraqi prisoners is a perfect example of this mechanism at work. There was overwhelming evidence to point that these abuses in Iraq were not isolated events, as similar cases had been reported in Afghanistan and Guantamano. This coupled with the fact that the Bush administration claims that the Geneva Convention does not apply to these 'terrorists' gives us unprecedented indications that torture is a method regularly used in the interrogations of these detainees. However, the American media, like said points out, displayed a singular perspective on the event, which coincidently or not was in line with the administrations view that these abuses were isolated cases, which did not represent the army's policy towards interrogation. Ironically, Bush is now pushing Congress to relax their laws on torture.

Said points out that like us, reporters are only human, they assume that everything occurring in their society is normal, and that habits in that society are the norm, e.g. education, religion, etc. These internalised values reflect the reporter's professional code of ethics, the way they do and say things, and the knowledge of the reports' intended target audience. This is how the framework contributes to the standardising and stereotyping of media reports. For Said, "The reporter ends up bringing more to the event that he is covering than bringing out of it." What Said is saying is clearly evident in the media today. For instance all media stations and newspapers in America refer to Palestinian activists in the occupied territories as terrorists. The systematic destruction of houses in the occupied territories condemned by Amnesty International's three-year report as a war crime has been portrayed largely in the American media as a military operation to root out tunnels that are used to smuggle weapons from neighboring countries. Despite all the different news stations and newspapers covering the event, they all chose the same interpretation of the event, which happened to be in line with US foreign policy.

The idea that one can never detach themselves from the events they cover is a concept that philosopher Jean Grimshaw makes painstakingly clear. She claims that when conducting social science research, like reporting, to be objective is to claim there are laws governing social reality that are the same as the laws governing physical reality. When she refers to physical reality, she means scientists who can observe material things and understand them through observation. Grimshaw rejects the idea that you can be objective, as human behaviour can never be studied without reference to purposes, meanings and intentions of those who are the object of study. You cannot have a value-free reporter in the sense that there is a realm of facts, an event, that can be covered, which is separate from any human interests and concern.

The American media is unique as it represents a society in which its organisations and interests are original and supported by the fact that they are the only super power in the world. Said argues that however independent reporters may be, when they cover events around the world they do so with the subconscious knowledge that their corporation is part of the make up of this American power that is threatened by foreign countries. Put in context, it implies that the concept of an independent press takes a back-step to the overriding expressions of loyalty and patriotism that is synonyms with national identification. The effects of this framework increased dramatically after 9/11, as one would be perceived as unpatriotic if they opposed the popular view. This was no more evident than the build-up to the Iraq war, when the reasons for going to war and allegations made at the former regime were never truly questioned by the American media for one reason or another. In situations like these it could be assumed that the independent media aids American foreign policy, as they collect information on the outside world inside a framework dominated by government policy.

Even American Journalists who are stationed abroad abide by this framework. One would think they would develop a different perspective on events when witnessing them outside their homeland, but this is not the case as there is a strong sense of relying on what they have learnt in the past, and what an American media representative abroad ought to know, learn and say. Said uses the example of a New York Times correspondent, as the person is still embedded in the values of the corporation, and the way it thinks of itself and what it is. Then of course there is the editorial process, which on an unconscious level acts as the last stage of political and ideological constraints. Said acknowledges that there have been situations in the past when there is a conflict in government policy and the media, which usually ends up with a shift in government policy, as in Vietnam.
The American media is free; it can represent whatever view it wishes to. However, Said points out that they are corporations serving and promoting corporate identity and corporate America, they are all after the same objectives and goals. For Said, this is the underlying factor that decides what becomes news and how it should be portrayed.

This system of broadcasting a singular message and ideology works at a macro-level as well, as the interpretation of news is monopolised by a handful of organisations. Said uses organisations like CNN, CBS and The New York Times to illustrate his point. These organisations generate large audiences compared to other networks and are able to choose the news they get across to their audiences, which means they make a deep impact on the opinions of the public. The implications for foreign news reporting are huge due to the fact that these organisations have more on the spot reporters. This means they set the pace for what makes the news in their society, as other participating news organisations will then proceed to follow the story. The sheer vastness of the reporters stationed abroad has other benefits; such as it gives them credibility as they have frequent citations by organisations following the story. So credibility is not gained from the objectivity of the reporting, but rather by its sheer institutional prestige, its frequency, expertise and experience in reporting events. This set up creates a situation in which the small independent news providers are reliant on a small number of major networks of news suppliers. For Said, this forms an, "emergence of an American image of reality that does have a reconisable coherence."

So if objectivity is an ideology that cannot be applied to reality, why are Arabic media stations so regularly the targets of verbal abuse from the American administration? For an employee at Al-Jazeera, Yosri Fouda, the answer is simple, "I can see why the American and British politicians and military leaders don't like us showing these pictures. They show a side of the war that they don't want projected because it may affect public opinion in their country negatively."

The only thing Arab media stations can be accused of is cultural bias, which is only natural as every culture has a preference towards their own society. CNN and other American media stations are culturally biased, as they represent the news from an American perspective. So, to rid the world of the so- called controversial news staions in the Middle East would be like gagging the Arab street, as these news stations represent the voice of the Arab people.