Satellite TV after the Iraq War

It is hard to remember what the Arab world was like before the appearance of Qatar-based Al Jazeera television, along with stations operating out of Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Cairo and other cities. Before their arrival, the Arab viewing public was served a bland daily diet of heavily censored state-controlled broadcasts that reflected the government line and no other.

Today, a range of views can be heard - from opposition groups as well as official circles. Interviews are conducted in a tough and challenging manner. The voices of the public are heard via phone-in discussion programs.

In the run-up to war, the satellite stations became the focus for Arab debate. In the view of Mahmoud al-Rimawi, writing in the Jordanian daily Al-Rai, "What has happened is that satellite television stations have become not just platforms from which to disseminate news and exchange ideas, but they have also changed to become virtual open parliaments."

In a region where freedom of speech is limited, these parliaments of the air are allowing the first signs of a popular democratic movement to take tentative root. But as much as the debates across the region's airwaves are now open and passionate, a striking factor is that most of the participants in studio discussions are writers and academics - rather than senior government leaders or heads of state.

In other words, the gradual democratization process is happening from the bottom upwards, rather than the other way round.

Arab leaders still seem uneasy about the new freedom that the broadcasters have found. An example of this was seen at the recent Arab summit in Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt. To the surprise of Arab viewers across the region, an altercation broke out between two regional heads of state.

One could sense chairs across the region being edged towards TV screens as viewers savored this rare spectacle of Arab leaders with their guard down. But within a few seconds, the Egyptian government had pulled the plug on the live feed from the summit. Open disagreement and debate between Arab leaders, it seems, is still a phenomenon of the future.

The next day, newspapers in the two countries, as is habitually the case when regimes fall out with each other, lined up loyally behind their respective governments and began a ritualistic exchange of insults. Meanwhile, as Arab leaders and their cronies retreated once more to the silence and safety of their palaces, the region's virtual parliaments resumed normal business, discussing the crisis in Iraq.

Much as the regimes may choose to ignore the fact, there is no denying the amazing changes that satellite news channels have brought about - it is no exaggeration to call them revolutionary.
While the progress over the past two or three years has been rapid, in Rimawi's view, the revolution in the Arab media started when publishers from the region began setting up newspapers in the West - a process that "enabled Arabs to compete for top jobs and acquire the highest professional standards in the media.

The next step after that was the opening of satellite television stations. Anyone following these developments cannot help but notice the extent to which democracy has expanded since the mid-1980s - with the freeing up of the media providing a better and more conducive atmosphere for it. Whatever one's opinion of these developments, there is no denying the direct relationship between the liberated media and political and other reform."

Not only Arab regimes, but political parties as well have been slow to rise to the challenges presented by the communications revolution in the Arab news business. The Arab parties traditionally hold their debates in private. Today, the Arab public is less inclined to accept this lack of transparency.

The emergence of the virtual parliaments of the air, Rimawi says, "has robbed the parties of the distinction that they used to enjoy of being the arbiters of what was said and not said. It is a wonder that the parties have not woken up to these changes and reassessed what their roles should be in the information age."

Not all commentators welcome the sudden expansion of satellite broadcasting, accusing some of the stations of being irresponsible and damaging inter-Arab relations. The views expressed cause blood pressure to rise and, at times, diplomatic spats. Al Jazeera alone has been at various times accused of being anti-Saudi, pro-Iraqi, pro-Israeli and anti-Jordanian.

Some critics say the satellite stations are tolerated as a way of enabling the public to let off steam. "I think, on the whole, that Arab rulers in their palaces sleep easier at night as a result of these channels," said a Western diplomat in the Gulf. Palestinian writer Rami Khouri believes that satellite channels are merely purveyors of "the same vapid talk" heard in the region for decades that will change nothing.

If there are differences of opinion over the value of the satellite boom in the political evolution of the Arab world, there are no such doubts about Arab news coverage of the war in Iraq. For the first time, Arab viewers have experienced a conflict in the region without having to do so through the lens and political spin of the major Western broadcasting organizations. If the 1991 conflict was CNN's war, then this is the war of Al Jazeera and the rest of the Arab stations.

Surfing between Al Jazeera and America's Fox News,you might be watching completely different conflicts. Al Jazeera was taking viewers to Baghdad and other Iraqi cities and showing the war as it was being experienced at the grassroots - the terror and gruesome results of being on the receiving end of sustained missile attacks and heavy bombing.

It showed the conflict from the perspective of people who had to endure it. While Western audiences are spared close-up shots of the dead and dying, Arab viewers are inured to such images after years of television coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Fox, over the same period, kept the horror of war at arm's length, sanitizing atrocities and presenting the conflict as the Bush administration was trying to portray it - for the benefit of the Iraqi people. To watch Fox for any half-hour period was to witness a slick production that was designed for a painless, hi-tech conflict. As the campaign slowed down after the swift progress of the opening days, the Fox presenters had to work hard to maintain the air of optimism.

When it came to coverage of the war on the ground in Iraq, Fox correspondents embedded with the forces tended to present the campaign almost as an aid operation with military backup. Referring to the prospect of street-by-street fighting in Basra, one studio presenter said, "The purpose is to free the city up to allow the distribution of aid. The British have made one food drop already and are beginning to build bridges with the local community."

Al Jazeera, at this time, was showing footage of widespread destruction from coalition bombing, leaving Basra without water or electricity. Children were shown with amputated limbs lying on blood-soaked hospital beds. Allied reports of a popular insurrection in Basra were disproved by a live report from an Al Jazeera correspondent in the city.

As for the heavy loss of life sustained during missile strikes that hit crowded markets in Baghdad, Fox's automatic reaction was to echo the US administration's view that the explosions could have been caused by the Iraqis themselves. Al Jazeera simply allowed the pictures to run, in all their horror, for many minutes without commentary.

Above all, Fox personnel were required to be as 100 percent loyal to the war aims as they were to the American flag. When Al Jazeera showed the bodies of American servicemen and US prisoners of war in Iraqi hands, the station's defense correspondent, live on air in Washington, could barely contain his anger. Correspondents of the Arab station by contrast have remained detached in their presentation of the carnage that followed heavy bombing in Baghdad and Basra, with more emphasis on the visual image than on any accompanying comment.

While Al Jazeera, in the period after the start of war, interviewed senior US officials as much as it did Iraqi ones, Fox seemed unable to accommodate the Arab point of view - whether government or public. And there was never talk of "American forces" in action in Iraq; it was always "our forces."

No matter how events unfold in the coming days, the likelihood is that Al Jazeera and Fox will continue to view the conflict through completely different lenses. While the former will keep up its 24-hour coverage, as seen from the streets of Baghdad and elsewhere for as long as it is able, the latter will concentrate on America's ultimate goal, while playing down the setbacks and human suffering involved in reaching it.

By doing so it risks presenting war almost as another form of entertainment. In the words of retired Colonel Bob McGuiness, one of the many military analysts hired by Fox, "Our news coverage gives a real sense of what it's like to be there - this is better than anything you would see on a video game. It's unique."

For Arab viewers, the vivid memories of the war - when it is completely over - are likely to be the images of the civilian casualties in Baghdad and elsewhere - and of the live broadcasts by Arab correspondents from Al Jazeera, Abu Dhabi and Al Arabiya who remained on air while the capital was pounded from afar.

The war in Iraq will be remembered, in short, as the conflict in which Arab satellite news channels came of age, both in the debate before hostilities began and in the way that they covered the fighting and the ensuing human suffering. One thing is very clear: for the Arab television viewer, the era of CNN, Fox News and the BBC is dead and buried.