US & Arab Media: Losing Hearts and Minds High on the Hobby Horse

Great Debates
1

This OP comes in part or rather is motivated in part from reading the following article:

“US attacks ‘biased’ Arab news”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3101387.stm
My dear Wolfowitz has launched an attack on al-Jazeerah and al-Arabiyah for being anti American

Unsurprising. As is the follow on

Now I shall leave the remainder of the article to the reader. The detials are less important than what I should like to comment on, which is the piss poor communicative strategy adopted to date, as part of a generally piss poor post war strategy in re Reconstruction in general (see http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=179177&pagenumber=3)

Now, I am a consumer of both these stations, although I confess to having been too busy to follow things closely of late.

First, it is easily granted neither of these stations, nor Abu Dhabi nor the others are “pro American” in any sense.

Second, I can easily grant that all of the Arab satellite TV stations are moderately anti-American in tone and content, or better pre-disposed to look at the negative rather than the positive (not that there is much positive going on in Iraq). This is in part reflective bias, in part market driven. Pro American (Government) lines do not sell well, no doubt because one can already get that in state medias in American allies’ as well as some 60 years of reflexive 3rd worldist Arabism.

However, Wolfowitz’s characterization strikes me as itself “slanting” things “incredibly” – al-Jazeerah and al-Arabiyah strike me as doing a fairly decent job, and willing to correct. They are, in short, flawed but free media. They are also the only news sources consistently trusted in the Arab world.

So, our official position seems to be that they should be demonized rather than effectively engaged. Rarely do I see US officials on the channels, and given the Brit and other presence I do not believe this is their prejudice, and in my opinion (granting I have not followed this as closely as one might hope) the line used is pure Bush Admin Party Line.

First, this kind of speech goes over like a rock off a boat in the region. The style and substance is just plain wrong for Arab ears. One has to engage the audience on its own terms, not on your USA directed talking points.

Second, happy talk to the background of current developments and problems in Iraq looks absurd. It’s not their problem that developments look bad, it’s yours

Third, Wolfowitz et al putting pressure on the owners of the few more or less free Arab news outlets for “more balance” – which I must say I read based off of experience and my consumption of the named channels, as saying ‘censor yourselves’ – simply is not the best form of engagement.

There needs to be a fundamental increse in capacity for these efforts, that is without doubt, but they also need to start trying to communicate with the region, not talking down and at it, and bullying when that doesn’t work.

2

Coll, a question. When the US recently announced it was pulling troops out of SA, was there any American diplo/mil presence on Arab TV to talk about the withdrawal? Seems to me it would be an important thing to say (even if not entirely true) that a) victory in Iraq allowed us to pull out, as we were there defending against a potential Saddam invasion, and b) pullout was in the works before 9/11, and OBL’s actions made it necessary for us to remain there longer than we wanted.

3

IIRC, Powell went on Al-Jazeera sometime before the Iraq invasion, but the administration does seem to be pretty much ignoring the Arab news media overall. Is there a sense that American gov’t officials won’t get a “fair shake” on Al-Jazeera? Kind of like how Hillary won’t appear on FOX News. Anyway, it doesn’t appear that A-J is such a propaganda machine that it should be essentially boycotted. If that’s the news media that the general Arab populace relies on, then it behooves us to get our position put forward on it.

4

Let’s face it Any politician is going to be weary about going on any news network they have no pull with what so ever.

Even the free press in the United States knows that it can’t rock the boat too much less they lose access to certain “privileges” with the current administration. The government can make or break the ratings of the networks by restricting who the network can interview, which news conferences they can be allowed to, plus any “inside information” .

Armed with that you can have moments such as Rumsfelds tongue lashing of Blitzer on air and the news conferences where the hard questions are not asked too often.

Of course if they don’t tell their side, there will be a bias. It is the US government’s responsibility to represent their side of the argument and if they think merely using US news organizations would be good enough, they are seriously deluded.

5

One of the points in the CSIS report and recommendations was

I can’t imagine any better partners for the US to achieve these goals than al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya. I think every effort should be made to produce laudable results and get these networks reporters in to see them. I do not believe either of them are so horridly biased that they would not report true successes in the reconstruction. They certainly won’t be cheerleaders for the administration’s efforts, but quite frankly I can’t believe they would retain the kind of credibility they have with the Iraqis and others in the region if they were.

Enjoy,
Steven

6

Coll:

If, as you say, these stations are biased and anti-american I have no problem with Wolfowitz or anybody else calling them on that issue.

7

Since I only have second hand knowledge about both al-Jazeeraha and al-Arabiyah, I’ll refrain from comenting on their alledged biases. OTOH, for Wolfowitz to whine about slanted coverage while being interviewed by Fox “News” – a station I am rather familiar with – strikes me as particularly ironic. Or maybe that should be “moronic.”

In fact, this is the kind of thing one expects to read in The Onion, not BBC.

8

I think Coll is saying that al-Jazeera et al are “anti-American” only in the sense that they play a counterbalance to the jingoism of American media, both for practical (ratings) and pragmatic (journalistic) reasons.

9

Apparently crucial to our success in Iraq that we be diplomatic.

10

I think all major US news stations should be heavily critisized for being extremely anti-Iraq, during this whole show.

11

rjung:

That’s just silly, Willy. I suppose Ann Coulter is only biased in that she is a “counterbalance” to Michael Moore?

If it’s bad, it’s bad and should be called on it.

We are not after all, taking an average, are we?

12

I think Mtgman nailed it.

13

It’s just another missed opportunity. This “foreign policy venture” is getting very expensive very quickly. This will tie up American money, energy, and armed forces for years. Reservists are being called up.

14

Interesting case in point: Saddam’s “grandson”. (Imagine calling Keyser Sozay “Granpa”.) The very day the Bobbsy Twins were killed, Al Jazeera identifed the 14 year old boy killed with them as being Saddams grandson by Qusay, while the American press did not identify him. Naturally, whacking out a 14-year old boy is not something the American press will crow about. But I watch the news, etc., and I’ve not even heard it so much as mentioned in passing. Surely by now he has been reliably identified?

If all of this is true, or even if the boy was just delivering pizza, the US should definitely move to make some gesture of contrition, and the Arab news networks would be the ideal forum. I have many beefs with US policy, but I don’t believe gunning down children is policy.

15

elucidator: According to reports, Hussein’s grandson fired on US troops:

16

And for all I know, that is the truth. Unfortunately, it is also precisely what one would expect the US to say, regardless of the actual circumstances. It may be that he was armed and dangerous, he may be the secret mastermind behind the entire Saddamite regime, he might have just been watching MTV.

It hardly matters. Perception matters, spin matters. If the image of American troops gloating over the bullet-shattered corpse of a boy is what is getting play over there, it should be countered. Clearly, contesting the facts isn’t going to be believed, hence the need for a gesture of contrition to pluck the emotional strings.

We’re talkin’ news here, what do facts have to do with it?

17

Since we all are being Gentlemen here I won’t call a whore a whore. But I must point out that the reporting of the war by the arab press was so skewed towards the fantastic, i.e. heroic battle stands by imaginary iraqi fighters and glorious Iraqi battle victories over the invading white faced dogs, that a hundred million arabs fainted in the streets when Baghdad fell.

Weren’t you all watching television back then? Will next we see posts on this board decrying the american distrust of Baghdad Bob?

18

Hell, maybe we could punish the troops too, to show the “Arab street” we’re serious about reprimanding those who fire on civilians, even when that’s not actually the case.

I think you’re missing the point of the OP. We certainly do not want to admit wrongdoing when we have no reason to believe there has been any. And advocating “spin” over truth in matters of fact (as opposed to matters of motivation, as my post about Saudi discussed) is more than a little ridiculous. I think what really has to be done is the US must actively engage the Arab media, to show that we take their concerns (and them) seriously. The government is not a media critic – certainly not a foreign media critic – and even if Arab media sources are biased, it is not our place to say so. Unless it is a mindless government-run propaganda rag like Pravda, the US needs to have a presence in Arab media outlets, rather than childishly claiming that those outlets aren’t “fair” to us. American officials need to be seen on al-Jazeera not only defending our values, but also explaining why those values are important to Arab life.

19

Milum,
What do you propose we should do to win the hearts and minds of Iraqis and the Arab world in general?

Bonus Question:
Are you posting for goats?

20

Milum, those reports were from Iraqi state television, not Al-Jazeerah and Al-Arabiyah. No one is saying that the Iraqi state television station is unbiased. Everyone hated Hussein.