Arab TV-News Station Is Playing It Fair
James P. Pinkerton
IN THE parlance of journalism, Osama bin Laden is the great "get."
To be sure, President George W. Bush wants him "dead or alive," but reporters, pursuing Pulitzers and ratings glory, just want him, live, alive and exclusive. But, of course, the competition is international now, and the winner is - Al-Jazeera TV.
CNN, used to getting the best gets, had to settle for the consolation prize of being able to feed in some questions of its own. Such cooperation among media enterprises may be disturbing, but it also should be encouraging, because it points to an expanding supply of genuine journalism.
Al-Jazeera, of course, is the 24-hour Arab language news channel, beaming out of the Persian Gulf country of Qatar. It has been in existence since 1996, but it burst into prominence since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The American government has been critical of the channel; Secretary of State Colin Powell even asked the emir of Qatar to restrain its coverage. The emir declined, and one American, at least, thinks that's good news for the United States.
"Al-Jazeera is not a Taliban mouthpiece," says Jennifer Bryson, a freelance journalist who scrutinizes the channel via satellite dish in her apartment in Arlington, Va. "It has good access in Afghanistan and offers the news from an Arab and Muslim perspective, but it strives to present both sides of every story." Bryson knows her stuff; she has a PhD from Yale in Near Eastern languages and civilizations, and has worked for both the U.S. government and a variety of American media.
Just recently, Bryson noted, Al-Jazeera showed a videotape from yet another al-Qaida leader along with an equal-length interview with an American, Edward Walker, former assistant secretary of state for the Middle East. In other words, the station's news packages are generally even-Steven, she added, as well as the live talk shows, which mix panel discussion and call-ins. The names of these shows suggest a commitment to American-style argumentation: "More Than One Opinion," "The Opposing Viewpoint." Indeed, one of Al-Jazeera's mottoes is, "Opinion and the Other Opinion."
To be sure, certain regional concerns loom huge. The plight of Afghan refugees is given more airtime than in non-Arab media outlets. Islamic issues in such mostly Muslim countries as Indonesia and Malaysia receive close coverage as well. And while Al-Jazeera frequently interviews Israelis, the coverage tends to tilt toward the other side. Palestinians killed in the fighting on the West Bank and in Gaza are referred to as shuhada, or martyrs.
So it's no surprise that bin Laden picked Al-Jazeera. The channel reaches perhaps 40 million Arabic speakers worldwide. Still, it's a credit to the newbie news channel that it offered to share, sort of, its bin Laden exclusive with a "name" American media outfit; CNN gets to submit questions to the al-Qaida leader.
But should CNN be participating in such an exercise? And what should the news channel do with the footage it gets? Run it unedited? Edited? Government officials and media honchos are wrangling over those questions, but as a practical matter, it doesn't much matter; whatever bin Laden puts on tape will be seen worldwide. All Al-Jazeera subscribers will see it in real time, as will savvy Americans such as Bryson. And everyone will see it sooner or later. The old dictum of computer hackers - information wants to be free - now applies to multinational cable news.
And is that so bad? It's highly unlikely that those who saw the Twin Towers collapse will have their opinion changed by anything bin Laden might say. And as for any coded message he might deliver via TV, surely the Internet is the more obvious tool for such sneaky sending. Indeed, it could be argued that the more exposure the better: the San Francisco Chronicle reported Monday that geologists think they might be able to determine bin Laden's whereabouts - or at least his onceabouts - from the rocks in the background of his last videotape.
What's most encouraging, however, is that an Arab media entity is free enough to cooperate with an American company, showing news that might be distasteful, but is nonetheless vital. That may be small comfort for Americans today, but if the time comes when Arabs can talk on the set rather than fight in the streets, Al-Jazeera will have made not just an impression, but a contribution.
(James P. Pinkerton has been a columnist for Newsday since 1993. Prior to that, he worked in the White House under presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, and also in the 1980, 1984, 1988, and 1992 Republican presidential campaigns.Pinkerton is the author of What Comes Next: The End of Big Government--And the New Paradigm Ahead (Hyperion: 1995). He is also a contributor to the Fox News Channel and a Fellow at the New America Foundation in Washington DC. He is a graduate of Stanford University).
In defense of al-Jazeera
Attacking the messenger, and our message at the same time
By Michael Moran-MSNBC
LONDON, Oct. 18 - One day in April 1996, as I headed for my desk in the newsroom at BBC Television Centre, I noticed an odd gathering of journalists in the space beside ours - the newsroom of BBC Arabic Television. There were tear-streaked faces, hugs among staff members and anger as the 250 journalists were told that the network, a BBC partnership with a Saudi company, would be shut down because the Saudis tried to censor a documentary on executions in their puritanical country. It was a devastating defeat for a brave group of journalists.
FOR MANY of BBC Arabic's staff, that day marked the death of a long-held dream: uncensored news for the Middle East, reports shorn of the crazy conspiracy theories, anti-Israel sentiments and sniveling praise for venal regimes that is standard fare on state-controlled broadcast networks from Algiers to Islamabad.
Jamil Azar, then with the BBC's Arabic service, told me later how wrenching it was for so many on the staff who worked so hard at something they truly believed would change attitudes in the region. "We understand the BBC's position," Azar told me. "But the gap it will leave will be tremendous."
BORN FROM THE ASHES
As it turned out, the gap was quickly filled. From the ashes of BBC Arabic rose al-Jazeera, a satellite channel funded by the Emir of Qatar and other Arab moderates who had recognized during BBC Arabic's short life that the long-term interests of Islam would be served best by truth rather than censorship. Unfortunately, that kind of foresight temporarily escaped the White House, opening the United States up to charges of hypocrisy at precisely the time when the United States needs to be seen taking every possible step to be up-front about its goals.
The first time most Americans heard the name al-Jazeera was Sunday, Oct. 7, the day U.S. and British forces began hitting the Taliban and its "guests" in Afghanistan. The timing was almost surely accidental . Western journalists had spent three weeks expecting an attack at any moment. But the impact on the White House was undeniable, and suddenly Washington reverted to the kind of bullying that had not been evident in the buildup to the attack.
Secretary of State Colin Powell denounced al-Jazeera for airing "vitriolic, irresponsible kinds of statements" when it broadcast a videotaped statement by suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden praising the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.
The CIA leaked its concern that bin Laden might be sending secret messages through these taped statements. Condoleeza Rice, the national security adviser, called and visited with top American network and newspaper representatives, urging them to consider the dangers of airing bin Laden's views. On the shallower media outlets around the U.S., al-Jazeera suddenly found itself being equated with the former Communist mouthpiece Pravda or Hitler's National Zeitung.
REALITY CHECK
The truth could hardly be more different.
Today, al-Jazeera is staffed by many of the same journalists I saw weeping in London that day, including Azar. It is the lone Arabic broadcast outlet to put truth and objectivity above even its survival. For its pains during the five years of its existence, it has been attacked by virtually every government in the Middle East.
The network's bureaus around the region are periodically closed because of al-Jazeera's insistence in airing stories about the corruption of government officials in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria and elsewhere. Israeli officials and journalists, all but banned from other Middle Eastern networks, are staples on al-Jazeera, whose motto is "We get both sides of the story.'
HARD, RISKY WORK
To truly understand how wrong it is to attack al-Jazeera, one needs to consider two points.
First, that to be anything but a lackey in the Arab media is to invite beatings, torture or death. The Society for the Protection of Journalists' annual list of reporters killed in the line of duty is littered with the corpses of moderate, tolerant Arab journalists who have stood up to their bullying dictatorships, on the one hand, or their puritanical mullahs, on the other.
Second, the fact that bin Laden's zealous murderers chose al-Jazeera as a way to get their message out has very little to do with the fact that al-Jazeera is the Middle East's only free news network. Did the rebel Irish Republican Army send coded messages to the BBC and the Reuters news agency claiming responsibility for its bombings because it thought British journalists would be sympathetic? Did Saddam Hussein choose CNN as a conduit for his own propaganda during the Persian Gulf War because he took a shine to Peter Arnett? Of course not, though some - most memorably former Republican Sen. Alan Simpson, claimed so at the time.
The reason all of these outlets get the story is because they earn it. Al-Jazeera worked hard covering the Afghan story when the very notion of doing so would have been dismissed at an American news meeting. It is important to remember that the list of American journalists who have set foot in Afghanistan over the past five years is short, indeed. It's not that it wasn't possible: My MSNBC.com colleague Preston Mendenhall did it just this spring and produced our series Pariah Nation.
Still, we couldn't get NBC to air any of the hours of video he shot while there. It simply didn't fit the mold of what NBC executives thought would garner the largest possible audience.
In contrast, al-Jazeera - and the BBC, until its correspondent was ejected by the Taliban - stayed in Kabul through the 1990s to cover a civil war that has been raging, in part with American weaponry, for more than a decade. So do we blame al-Jazeera for covering this war? As Fox would say, "You decide."
LESSONS LEARNED?
Happily, the attacks the Bush administration launched on al-Jazeera recently backfired so completely that Washington quickly shifted tactics, suddenly granting long-denied interviews with officials like Powell and Rice. Now, there's even talk of buying time on al-Jazeera to broadcast some kind of paid political advertisement about the conflict. To many, after the U.S. efforts to squash al-Jazeera, this will be lumped into the same category as the bin Laden campfire video: propaganda.
For al-Jazeera, the lesson is somewhat different. The Bush administration had a good point when it complained that the entire bin Laden video was aired without context. It's not just a matter of demanding equal time. Even in the airiest confines of journalism's ivory towers, the implications of what is being broadcast matters. You can't shout fire in a crowded theater - at least in an American one - and expect to get away without consequence for the deadly stampede that ensues. Al-Jazeera's broadcasts since have taken pains to put things into better perspective. Unfortunately, because they're the only game in Kabul, often American networks grab al-Jazeera's video images but don't have the perspective to add because they're not on the ground.
That brings us to the final lesson here: what passes for news in America. For the past 10 years, roughly since the idiotic O.J. Simpson trial, the language of marketing has entered American newsrooms like a badly targeted cruise missile. Talk of plot lines and demographics, sexiness and "water-cooler" appeal have polluted a mission that is protected by its own constitutional amendment. Celebrity journalists interview celebrity dimwits about their sex lives, while American foreign policy is left running on auto-pilot.
The hard truth is that the U.S. media left America as unprepared for these terrorist attacks as any Air Force general or CIA bureaucrat. As we dropped bombs on Iraq for 10 years running - justified or not - the U.S. media failed to report on it. Then suddenly, on Sept. 11, we think "We're at war" when in fact there hasn't been a day since the Gulf War ended when an American aircraft hasn't locked onto a target with a missile or bomb. We were at war, it's just that the media didn't think it was interesting enough to tell you about it.
That's our lesson to learn.
(Michael Moran is senior producer for special projects at MSNBC.com. He worked as the BBC's U.S. affairs analyst in London from 1993-96.)
The new "normal"
Face it: You just can't get there from here
By Jill Nelson-MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR
NEW YORK, Oct. 15 - In the midst of the grief, anxiety and fear that most Americans feel in the wake of the attacks of Sept. 11, the current mantra of elected officials and business leaders that we need to just "get back to normal" rings hollow. The fact is that "normal," as we knew it, ended on Sept. 11, and even a collective national spasm of chanting "return to normal, return to normal" won't get us back there.
Normal doesn't exist anymore.
STILL, MAYBE YOU can't blame the politicians for trying, since they clearly don't have much idea what else to do. You'd like to think that in extraordinary times our elected officials could come up with some extraordinary solutions, but no such luck. Instead, it's the same old market-driven exhortations we were hearing before Sept. 11, when we were told that it was our responsibility to prop up a faltering economy by going out and spending those paltry checks from the great GOP tax refund.
I don't know about you, but I'm having difficulty understanding how my going to Disneyland or the mall or out to dinner is going to do a damn thing toward resurrecting a stricken economy or making the world safe from terrorists. These are frightening times, and like most Americans I'd rather stay home with my family, whip up some comfort food, and maybe rent a video.
OPIATE NO LONGER
Even television, the electronic opiate of the people, fails to distract or lull, since news flashes run like tickertape beneath what passes for entertainment. It's impossible to avoid tuning in to the news, if only to make sure anthrax hasn't come to Harlem, if Afghanistan hasn't been obliterated, or if a new terrorist attack hasn't been waged on the homefront.
I don't know about you, but I'm not comforted by the pronouncements of the president, elected officials, or the military advisors, since they don't seem to have much of an idea of either what they're doing or why they're doing it. They seem to want a blank check that will enable to do whatever they want, whenever they think of it, without having to get anyone’s okay. I’m worried that in pursuing this vague “war on terrorism” we’re being asked to trade off our constitutional rights in exchange for a promise we’ll feel safe again by people who couldn’t keep us safe in the first place. Am I the only one deeply disturbed by demands for increased funding for an intelligence community that knew zip about what was about to happen a month ago but to whom we’re suddenly supposed to entrust what little faith we have left and even more bucks?
With each day that passes, it’s clear that “getting back to normal” is simply a euphemism for “big business as usual.” Consider what passes for normal:
We’ve bailed out the airlines to the tune of $15 billion, then saw thousands of airline workers laid off.
The president has floated a plan to bail out the insurance industry at taxpayers’ expense.
The pressure continues to open the Alaskan wildlife refuge to oil drilling; the rationale is that more domestic sources of oil will make us independent of potential terrorist nations, without even a nod to conservation or alternative sources of energy.
The counter-terrorsim legislation still being thrashed out in Congress would provide Attorney General John Ashcroft with the right to wiretap any phone a suspected terrorist might use; execute search warrants of homes without prior notification; and make it a crime to harbor an individual if the government decides there are undefined but “reasonable grounds to believe” that the person is a terrorist.
The gay partners of people killed in the attacks on the World Trade Center are having difficulty obtaining benefits.
Our lawmakers can’t seem to figure out a way to provide health benefits to hundreds of thousands of workers laid off in the last few months — not to mention the layoffs to come.
THE NO-NEWS MEDIA
Frankly, it often seems that what’s happened is being boiled down to yet another too long and just plain bad mini-series, complete with a new title for each daily episode: America Attacked, American Mourns, America Rising, America Fights Back, America Attacks…enough already. We all know what happened Sept. 11, no one needs a catchy title or playbook to stay focused. What we do need is some serious reporting and information that will help us as a nation to understand why there are people in the world who hate our political, cultural and economic behavior and values so much that they’re willing to die and take thousands of people with them to make their point.
Too often we don’t get real information, but pumped-up pundits assuring us that the poverty-stricken masses of the Muslim world hate Americans because we have theme parks, women in bikinis, and Hollywood. Well, hello: We all desperately want to feel better, but not enough to convince ourselves that it’s all the fault of Walt Disney, thongs, and the movies. These are perilous days, and to reduce the global struggle between the haves and the have-nots to petty jealousy isn’t comforting, it’s self-deluding. What we need is some serious history, analysis of global alliances and politics, lessons in religion and cultural diversity.
To paraphrase an old adage, if you don’t have anything intelligent to say, don’t say anything at all. It’s both a disservice and crass commercial opportunism for news media to stay on the air for hours when there’s no news, repeating rumor and scraping the bottom of the pundit barrel, down to where the real maniacs are. Yesterday, within 30 minutes on the same channel I was told that airport security was tighter than ever, that airport security was terrible, that the number of anthrax cases had grown and that no new cases of anthrax had been confirmed. To quote Charlie Brown, “Aaarrggghhhh!”
Then again, maybe escaping from the no-news media is the best argument for getting out of the house and trying to figure out what America’s new normal is I’ve found yet.
(Jill Nelson is a journalist, teacher and the author of books, including - Straight, No Chaser: How I Became a Grown-up Black Woman. She is a regular contributor to MSNBC.com.)
On patriotism and journalism
Lapel pins, dumb questions and videotape
By Dan Fisher
MSNBC
Oct. 12 — “Is there such a thing as patriotic duty in the media?” I was asked during an MSNBC.com chat Thursday. I think the patriotic duty of the U.S. news media is first to function as an independent and free press — to do what it’s envisioned in the Constitution to do, I responded. “It is, in times like these, incumbent on the media to exercise more care and caution, but I think their basic role and duty remain the same.”
CLEARLY, A SIGNIFICANT number of readers disagree. That’s understandable. Rarely does the news media look worse, look more self-absorbed, than when exercising that function in unprecedented public view at a time of war or national emergency. What’s patriotic about publishing or broadcasting the messages of hate from those the government is convinced are behind the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks? What can possibly be wrong with journalists’ showing support for their country by wearing a red, white and blue ribbon or a small American flag while reporting the story? Why do they keep on asking all those questions during military briefings, seeking information that could be useful to the country’s enemies?
CENSORING BIN LADEN?
The Bush administration stepped into the first of those questions when it asked U.S. news media this week to refrain from either broadcasting or publishing in full any future videotaped statements by Osama bin Laden or spokesmen for his al-Qaida organization. In a subsequent prepared statement, NBC News said that it “and other network news divisions agree that we will not air any prerecorded messages from al-Qaida without screening them in their entirety first. We will then apply journalistic judgment before deciding which portions, if any, we will broadcast.” The New York Times quoted one unnamed network executive as describing it as a “patriotic” decision.
I think it’s also basic, good journalism. An essential part of the process is evaluating information and providing any context necessary to make it understandable and useful to readers. Certainly there are times when broadcasting or reprinting the full text of a speech or press conference is appropriate, depending on the gravity of the subject and the credentials of the speaker. Given the central role of bin Laden and al-Qaida, and the fact that Americans had previously been exposed to little directly from them, I’d argue that airing the original tapes was journalistically appropriate. They helped us all understand in chilling detail what the country is up against.
But what may have been appropriate with those original tapes is not necessarily appropriate in handling any future bin Laden videos. This is where basic journalism comes in — if the videos contain new information, it should — and I trust it will — be reported. But that’s unlikely to require making the full text available. To do so, or to continue broadcasting or reprinting such messages when they contain nothing that is new, would mean crossing the line from legitimate journalism to simply spreading terrorist propaganda.
ANTI-AMERICAN BEHAVIOR?
Reader Karen Lloyd is concerned about what she sees as another patriotism-related issue. “I am an American and mad as hell about NBC, CBS, ABC and any other news organization that continues to have news people that ‘don’t feel right about wearing an American flag lapel pin,’” she writes. She sees refusal to wear such a pin as “anti-American behavior” and questions: “How can we believe any news coming from sources that do not want to offend America’s enemy?”
There’s been a lot of debate over this issue in the professional journalism media, and in the case of a news director at a college TV station who banned the wearing of such pins by his on-air personalities, it entered the popular press as well. While Lloyd is right that many journalists don’t feel right about wearing a pin, however, I’ve seen nothing that indicates that the reason is any concern about offending America’s enemy. The concern is over the principle of journalistic independence.
The best commentary I’ve seen on the subject was by Walter S. Mossberg, personal technology columnist for the Wall Street Journal, who wrote a piece titled ”Why I Wear an American Flag Pin" for the Web site of the Poynter journalism think tank.
“As a college student in the 1960s, I marched on the Pentagon and otherwise protested the Vietnam War,” Mossberg wrote. “I have no regrets about that. I’m proud of it, in fact. But I vowed many years ago never to accept the false notion, popular in those days, that the American flag was somehow the property only of the right wing, or the military, or any political faction. It belongs to all of us, even journalists.”
SYMBOL OF SOLIDARITY
Mossberg says he wears a flag pin as a symbol of solidarity with the Sept. 11 victims, their families and “all the brave people who are working to deal with the consequences of that attack.” But he also says he does not criticize journalists who choose not to wear such a pin. “It should be a personal choice.” He’s worth reading.
Ray Kunkle from Ocala, Fla., writes that it’s sad — and possibly dangerous to U.S. service men and women — for reporters to “continue to ask stupid questions and probe to try and get classified information at the White House briefing sessions.” I wrote about the issue of security vs. the public’s “right to know” a couple of weeks ago. The thing that strikes me here is the objection not to the information that is actually published but to the questions being asked.
Asking a lot of questions — even asking the same question a lot of different ways — is a standard part of reporting any story. It can seem arrogant in the best of circumstances, when the only participants are the reporter and the interviewee. And when the process takes place at a news conference being beamed live into U.S. homes, it can be downright professionally embarrassing.
That said, it is the job of reporters to ask questions — and for briefers to know the limits of their answers. “It is the policy of the Department of Defense to make available timely and accurate information so that the public, Congress and the news media may assess and understand the facts about national security and defense strategy,” according to the U.S. Department of Defense Principles of Information. “Information will be withheld only when disclosure would adversely affect national security or threaten the safety or privacy of the men and women of the Armed Forces.” The principles also say that “information will not be classified or otherwise withheld to protect the government from criticism or embarrassment.”
In other words, the process may not be pretty at times, but the participants all know the ground rules. It’s their patriotic duty.
(Dan Fisher is the MSNBC.com ombudsman, an independent critic of the journalism that appears on this site. Contact him at ombudsman@msnbc.com)
PR tips for inept civic leaders
For starters, never let reporters act as your mouthpiece
SILVER SPRING, Md., Oct. 16 — Terrorist attacks may have united Americans in many ways, but the undeniable fact is that we are afraid — for ourselves, for our children, for our men and women in uniform. And in fear, more than any other time, we depend on our leaders to keep us informed, updated, and calm. Not so with the recent anthrax outbreak in Florida, New York, or Washington, D.C.
THE ABSENCE of information from state and local officials has been mind-boggling in the face of this public health scare and what it means to a citizenry still reeling from the harsh realities of Sept. 11. Local news stories have appeared without direct quotes from county health officials, and credible information on what symptoms to look for or how to protect against the disease is not readily available — not even on the Palm Beach County Web site or D.C. area county sites, where I tried unsuccessfully to learn more about anthrax.
LOOK TO RUDY
Leaving the public in the dark creates a breeding ground for rumor and panic. It also neglects one of the biggest information dissemination networks in the world — a well-informed citizenry. Mothers, fathers, teachers, clergy and community leaders can all help to spread the word, but not without information. On a national level, President Bush’s frequent press conferences and announcements are giving America and the media the information we need to feel more secure, and have helped to earn this President the highest approval rating in the history of polling. But on the local level, the current public health crisis has clearly highlighted some serious shortcomings in leadership.
Surely, close-mouthed public officials could be expected to take their cue from New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and his superb crisis communications skills. Mayor Giuliani is to be commended for the frequent and forthright updates he has given to the media and to his citizens in a crisis of epic proportion. He provides an ideal model for public officials at all levels. We can only assume that they haven’t been paying attention.
Local and state officials need to understand that when they abandon their citizens in a crisis, we look to someone else to fill the information void — namely, the media. Reporters fill in the holes as best they can, which ultimately presents the public with unconfirmed reports, supposition, and downright misinformation. Only then, when thousands upon thousands of people have panicked — and rightly so, given the circumstances — does an elected official step to the microphone and admonish us, “Don’t panic.”
Sorry, pal. It’s too late for that.
FIVE BASIC RULES
This is not rocket science. It’s not even political science. It’s what marketers and spin masters would call Crisis Communications 101. In order to survive the tragedy, both personally and politically, there are some basic tenets of public relations that these civic leaders have evidently chosen to ignore:
Don’t let reporters act as your mouthpiece. Use the microphones in front of you to provide rapid and accurate information.
State and local officials have a responsibility to inform. You also have a responsibility to comfort. Making yourself visible and accessible is the first step to easing your citizens’ minds.
Information voids fill quickly. In a crisis, those voids almost immediately overflow with panic and speculation.
Bad situations make for opportunities to shine. Look to Giuliani. Constant face-time with his New York citizens made him the man to look to for strength and calm. And now his voters want to elect him to a third term.
A major crisis will have a profound and enduring effect on each local official’s reputation.
USE THE WEB
And apparently everyone has forgotten about the Web, at least on the local level. If local governments were further along in implementing their e-government initiatives, we would have interactive services already in place that allow government to reach out electronically — and proactively — to citizens during a crisis. The stagnant and uninformative Web presence we’re seeing right now is no help to anyone.
In times of stress, we need more talk, not less. Local and state officials have got to open up if they want the rest of us to remain calm. I’m not asking much — just take advantage of high-tech tools and high-touch venues to communicate with your citizenry. We’re listening. We’re watching. And come election time, we won’t forget.
(Joyce L. Bosc is founder and CEO of Boscobel Marketing Communications, Inc. in Silver Spring, Md. for such clients as Xerox, the U.S. Dept. of Labor, the National Park Service and America Online).