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Today's Top News
The War of Ideas
As part of its four-part special series, "News War," PBS's Frontline tackles the role of the Arab media. "The War of Ideas [1]," the last episode of the series, looks at "the media revolution [2] sweeping the Arab world since the advent of Al Jazeera." The episode is eye opening for what it reveals and perhaps, more importantly, for what it leaves out.
Reporter Greg Barker [3] begins the story at the U.S. State Department's new Rapid Response Unit. This group, started by the Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and close Bush ally, Karen Hughes [4], monitors what the international media is saying about America. It writes briefing reports in real time and develops a reply, which is then sent out to State Department offices worldwide. Barker says the Rapid Response Unit is like a campaign war room. These efforts aim to counteract the negative image of the U.S., or so the thinking goes.
Barker then goes to the Arab world and examines the myriad satellite channels that have flourished since Al Jazeera started broadcasting in the mid-1990s. What was so revolutionary about Al Jazeera was that, for the first time, Arab journalists were shaping public opinion outside of the narrow parameters of the state. For too long the media landscape in the Middle East was dominated by government. All of that has changed.
"The War of Ideas" delivers interviews with news directors from several different Arabic-language stations, but much time is spent looking at Al Jazeera [5] .
The U.S. government is not alone in its criticisms [6] of this channel. In Iraq, Al Jazeera was able to film inside the insurgency, including footage of attacks against U.S. troops. Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld [7] said that the channel was anti-American and in cahoots with the insurgents. Though the U.S. army twice bombed [8] Al Jazeera offices, once in Afghanistan and once in Iraq, it denied it was in retaliation for unfavorable coverage.
In 2004, the Iraqi government kicked Al Jazeera out of Iraq. But the documentary interviews one reporter who noted that Al Jazeera was not responsible for the increase in attacks. Just look at what happened after it left, the reporter says.
Al Jazeera's coverage [9] of the Israeli-Lebanese war of summer 2006 was criticized for being pro-Hezbollah. In response, an Al Jazeera correspondent said it was against the war itself. This point of view shaped coverage.<
What's missing here is the obvious correlation in the U.S. press. The American press [10] has finally admitted that its coverage in the run up to the Iraq War was not skeptical enough. Some stations were unabashedly pro-war.
A U.S. military spokesman based in the region says Al Jazeera is "like Fox News. It caters to its audience." Al Jazeera's Washington, D.C., bureau chief notes that the channel needs to reflect its audience, and that audience is getting more conservative.
Al Jazeera recently launched an English language channel. It broadcasts all over the world but is not available in the United States (though the State Department's Rapid Response Unit does monitor it). So why can't we see Al Jazeera English? Because a conservative group, Accuracy in Media [11], fought to keep Al Jazeera English out of our country. All satellite systems are refusing to carry the channel.
The U.S. military spokesmen in Dubai think it is "ludicrous" that Al Jazeera isn't available in United States. Americans are becoming more isolated, they say. They add that Al Jazeera needs to stand and fall on its on merits. Americans, these military men say, should not be afraid of ideas.
Too often the Bush Administration portrays the Iraq War as a war of ideas. That view leaves out the fact that it is a war of cluster bombs and white phosphate. It is a war of human casualties and maimed civilians. Just look at the ACLU's new database [12] of civilian casualties, culled from U.S. government documents obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests with the Defense Department, to get an idea of the human costs of the war.
The State Department can fight a war of perceptions, but until the government stops bombing people, perceptions may never change.
"America is doing a charm offensive," says the Al Arabiya bureau chief in Dubai. It's an impossible job because, he says, "they are trying to sell an unsellable product."
Elizabeth DiNovella is Culture Editor of The Progressive magazine. She writes about activism, politics, music, books, and film.
© 2007 The Progressive
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12 Comments so far
Show AllI find Al Jazeera to be an very good source of information. It is independent of any national interests and while it could be more in depth, it is an improvement to the embedded propaganda machine that passes for news in the US.
independent of national interest, maybe..independent of ideological interest, hardly
I see no ideological interest in their reporting. You are projecting.
Information, ideas, persuasion, psychology are all a key part of the so-called "War on Terror."
Various media platforms can be key in contributing to war or peace, destruction or human progress.
Unconventional psychological understanding can also be helpful.
More on this at:
"Unconventional Human Intelligence Support: Navy SEAL's report"
PopulistAmerica.com
January 7, 2007
http://www.populistamerica.com/unconventional_human_intelligence_support
"Information, ideas, persuasion, psychology are all a key part of the so-called "War on Terror." "
Class biased journalism encourages and supports terrorism against the majority of us which takes the form of anti-labor attitudes that empower our employers while disempowering us. That empower real-estate interests keeping us in constant terror of homelessness, and that empower the worship of militarism, anti-immigrant xenophobia, and the vengeance oriented paranoia that leaves a large percent of us in terror of police abuse and imprisonment.
The print media operates something like a dog whistle. In any story it puts out it can can be more than what is literally apparent. There can be subliminal messages embedded in their stories and editorials that can be heard by certain sections of our society. A good book on the subject is "Dog Whistle Politics and Journalism" by Peter Manning. Bye the way, why is it only on Aljazeera that I read about the latest news concerning Luis Posada Carriles?
Hoa Binh
I can respect DiNovella for admitting she was wrong, but now we are faced with the dilemma of how we keep such a disaster from happening again.
"I see no ideological interest in their reporting. You are projecting."
My counterclaim is you are blind to it since it agrees with your preconceptions.
Al-Jazeera does not "agree with my preconceptions" any more that MSNBC but I find less bias in it. The People's Weekly World agrees with my preconceptions but it has a bias, a working class bias.
My local newspaper carries only "news" stories from the AP wire. Read any AP piece concerning a controversial subject and this is what you'll notice if you read critically: The piece at the outset appears to present facts surrounding the issue in an unbiased manner, will develop some of the depth of the issue and work its way to a conclusion. The concluding paragraph or sentence will present the view that you are meant to keep as the "concluding truth" of the issue. This, for the most part is the status quo position, or the patriotic position. Because this site sometimes carries AP pieces I compare what is posted here to what is printed in my paper. For the most part the articles are identical, word for word. Somtimes though there is editorial reaaranging by the local paper, which is their right; it is their paper after all.
There are many ways to shape opinion. Most of what is spoken or written anywhere by everyone is meant to persuade. If I didn't have alternative sources of information concerning current issues I probably would never have noticed the slanting that is pervasive In the AP newsservivce.
MtnGoat:
I am watching your polemics on different topics on this site and now you hifglighted your reasoning fault with this: "you are blind to it since it agrees with your preconceptions."
No, sir, one is blind if one does not have preconceptions, for preconceptions are where thought lives.
Preconceptions to individual thought is what specie to individual organism; or what our planet is to Life itself.
I doubt you understand what I mean and that will not be your fault. Rather it will be result of concerted efforts to shape education in this country as to leave people like in the dark.
I will be most happy if am wrong and you do understand that what you call preconceptions sicence call theory.
Jaded Prole:
"The People's Weekly World agrees with my preconceptions but it has a bias, a working class bias."
Yea, that is exactly what I meant. Now, why class bias is more appropriate than moneybag class bias? Do we need to consult Socrates on that? I do not think so. All this talk about what if capitalism is nothing more than to ask what if my grandma had two wheels? We would not have any problem with Al-Jazeera if we all become bicycles, would we?