One cannot know the exact number of the people who watched the US
tanks enter Iraq, or saw a child who lost his family or his limbs
due to the US bombardment of Baghdad, or watched the woman who
waved furtively to the American soldiers. Some interpreted her wave
as a sign of welcome, while others saw it as a sign there were no
men in the house to interrogate. Nor can we know how many people
watched the Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf and
his bizarre pronouncements. But there is no doubt that viewing
numbers reached their peak on April 9, 2003, when Baghdad fell into
the US army's grip, and Saddam's statue was toppled from its stand
in Paradise Square, in the heart of the Iraqi capital.
The newspapers, TV and radio stations that were able to cover the
news from both sides were very lucky. Some were able to accompany
US and British forces during their incursion into Iraq as "embeds",
while others worked from within Baghdad and other Iraqi cities.
These media outlets were able to reflect a comprehensive picture of
events, although journalistic objectivity was not necessarily
implemented. There was easy access to information, but its
utilization was inhibited by the censorship implemented either by
the US army, which required the "embedded" correspondents to sign a
commitment not to reveal the troops' locations, or by the Iraqis in
Baghdad, Mosul and elsewhere. The Iraqi government also prevented
the representatives of a number of US media outlets from entering
Iraq.
Performance, Professionalism and Sycophancy
The first thing a journalist learns is that he/she should transmit
the truth, regardless of how ugly or unpleasant it may be. From a
practical point of view, credit should go to the anonymous
photographers and cameramen who often take great risks by following
a tank or a group of fighters, or wait at a location where bombs
are expected to fall. They are usually the ones more prone to
injury and even death. Tareq Ayyoub, the al-Jazeera correspondent,
was killed because he accompanied his cameraman to get a clearer
picture of a location where there was an exchange of fire.
An Information Offensive
It was evident that the presence of TV, radio, newspaper and
magazine reporters was to the viewers' and readers' advantage.
Tens, even hundreds, of journalists competed, or worked
complementarily to relay information about the war. The
implications of political developments and official or grassroots
reactions from within Iraq and other neighbouring countries were
also broadcast. It would not be an exaggeration to say that this
war was an intensive course for all political and military
observers of Middle East affairs in its complications, history,
geography and the importance of oil. In addition, it offered a
lesson in the importance of freedom and the role of the masses, in
despots and oppression and the relationship between the war and
Israel. The war has also given the West the opportunity to directly
observe a country like Iraq; its culture, wealth of resources, the
poverty of its people and the legal or illegal aspirations of its
government. It also raised questions, such as who has the right to
develop weapons or which countries have the right to build
industries?
The media offered a gourmet selection of information, analyses,
studies, interviews and comparisons to the global public. The
ramifications of this war impact, in one way or another, on the
whole world from the perspectives of hegemony, political action or
opposition. The whole world, which saw itself at the threshold of a
change in its political systems and international laws and customs,
was drawn to the media coverage. It was this, rather than the
number of victims, that grabbed people's interest. When 800,000
Africans are killed in Rwanda or Burundi, the world does not sit up
and pay attention. Instability in those countries doesn't threaten
the US or the UN's authority, no governments of oil-producing
nations are involved.
As a result of the media coverage of Iraq, there has been a leap of
consciousness in the Arab world over the necessity for freedom of
expression and the idea that democracy is inevitable. This has been
a lesson to the masses and to the regimes of the Arab world. The
first beneficiary should be the media, which must extricate itself
from the position of singing the praises of a regime and reach the
stage of revealing its blunders.
Polls have proven that the Qatar-based al-Jazeera channel has
retained a distinguished place among the public as the broadcaster
that depicts the picture closest to the truth. It is followed by
Abu Dhabi and al-Arabiya, a newly established spin-off from MBC.
These channels "embedded" their representatives with US and British
military forces and kept representatives at the Seliah base in
Kuwait. They also had a presence in Washington to cover the daily
press conference at the Defense Department. These three satellite
channels, in particular al-Jazeera, broadcast programs from
Washington with Americans and Arabs offering a continuous analysis
of the war and its repercussions, giving the viewer a broader
picture of events.
The shortcomings of these stations were manifest in a number of
dimensions - the first and most important was that they were unable
to show the stance taken by the Iraqi people towards its regime.
The exaggeration in conveying this stance after the war revealed
the wide gap between the pictures drawn during the war; what we had
seen was evidently the Iraqi people's support of the regime and
their willingness to resist the occupation. We did not see one
Iraqi critcizing the regime. Was this due to state censorship or to
self-censorship due to their fear of the regime and its oppression?
The other dimension is the obvious lack of knowledge of the
structure of the Iraqi opposition, its capabilites and internal
relations. This was shown in the aforementioned channels'
conviction that the future of Iraq was being played out by the
forces in the field - that is the Iraqi and allied forces. The
third dimension is the lack of credibility of some reports, with
battles described by a correspondent as fierce while the same
station later reported that some were merely short exchanges of
fire.
Human Interest Stories
Concentrating on military news instead of political news deprived
viewers of reports similar to those on the foreign channels, which
covered daily life in Iraq in the areas that had already fallen to
American and British forces or those that were still within the
Iraqi army's grasp. The Arab channels realized this shortcoming too
late, as the sound of guns and grenades had stopped. Instead, they
started transmitting reports about the suffering of the Iraqis
under Saddam Hussein. The reports were about killings and prisons,
and the luxuries enjoyed by members of the regime and the booty
they had distributed to their relatives. They also seasoned their
transmissions with reports about ruling characters and their
history, copied from Associated Press and Reuters. Even after the
regime fell, honesty and precision require that some positive
aspects, such as industrial, educational and gender development, be
mentioned. As was obvious from the pictures shown in Baghdad, there
was a general architectural resurgence and a great deal was spent
on developing universities, museums and libraries.
Both during and after the war, a lot was made of the role of
tribes, who were encouraged by the Iraqi president and his
information minister to resist invaders. These tribes also sent men
to stop the marauding and plundering and to organize the traffic,
etc. However, none of the satellite channel journalists bothered to
examine the social makeup of Iraq, explain who these tribes were or
what their continued importance was in the face of high levels of
education and literacy in Iraq. Another aspect that was ignored was
that of the Arab volunteers who played a greater role in the war
than that of the Iraqi army itself, but were only mentioned as
anonymous numbers.
In addition, these channels repeated the same reports a number of
times daily and even the following day. At some points, the same
report was transmitted every hour on the hour. Arab channels do not
have the financial resources of their foreign, and especially
American, counterparts. Despite this, al-Jazeera reporters were
able to transmit directly and spontaneously, and presented viewers
with professional analyses of the situation. Some of the
correspondents in the north exaggerated a little in their coverage
of the Kurdish problem, then made an about-turn and covered the
Kurdish militias' incursions into the cities in the north, where
elements of these militias participated in the looting and
pillaging. In terms of analysis, it was noticeable that most of the
these channels rushed to catch various military analysts' opinions,
as well as some political analysts opinions.
Many high-ranking officials appeared and exaggerated their
estimations of Iraqi capabilities, especially those of the
Republican Guard, the Special Guard and Saddam's guerrillas. Some
of them even promised viewers an Iraqi victory over the American
and British troops, indicating that the invading forces were
covering up their losses. Political analysts appeared on every
channel. Most spoke with respect and awe of the Iraqi resistance.
Some expected that Arab public oponion could change the stand of
their governments, if not topple the regimes themselves, and that
world opinion would succeed in stopping the war. The strange fact
is that these channels did not hold their military or political
analysts accountable when most of their predictions failed and
their visions proved to be short-sighted. These analysts then held
fast to their previous analyses but applied them to a post-Saddam
era in Iraq. Lebanon's al-Hayat LBC channel distinguished itself by
interviewing objective locals and allowing Iraqi officials, Kurdish
leaders, Kuwaitis and Americans to express their opinions. As a
result, their program ratings were higher than average.
"Invading Infidels," "Liberation" and "The Occupation"
While al-Jazeera correspondents embedded with the American and
British forces called them the allied forces, other journalists in
Basra, Mosul and a few in Baghdad described them as the invading or
occupying forces. An important question arises as to whether the
satellite channels were right to use a variety of terms,
potentially confusing viewers. These channels were obliged to
remain objective and not take sides in the conflict but, at the
same time, viewers have the right to hear consistent usage on the
same channel. It was noticeable that the terms changed as the war
developed - for example, Saddam Hussein was first called the Iraqi
president, then the toppled president and the term "the courageous
Iraqi army" soon changed to the "defeated," "vanishing" or
"dismembered" army. While this was a natural shift as the war
ended, previous exaggerations about Iraqi capabilities had
instilled illusions in viewers' minds, and some then held the
satellite channels responsible for their dashed hopes.
Despite all these criticisms, the war showed the media's importance
in the Arab world, where freedom of expression is a necessary
priority. This in itself has made us more optimistic, as it shows
the Arab masses will not remain bound to the dictates of their
regimes or external forces. The main advantage of the intense and
bulky doses of the war the media fed us could be the examination of
phrases such as "gaining victory over the Infidels and gangs of
international rogues," as al-Sahhaf put it, and "the liberation of
Iraq" as the American president and his secretary of defense put
it. In addition, all previous political bases and considerations
concerning Arab-Arab relations or Arab-international relations, and
more importantly, the relations between the governing and the
governed should be reconsidered to pave the way for new premises
that are scientific, modern and open to criticism and review.