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The Arab media and the Iraq war: The Iraq war was not simply about regime change in a single country, but a prelude to a larger regional shift in political systems. The crucial impact on the Arab world will include a vital lesson for its media: no less than the inevitability of democracy. Can the Arab media rise to the challenge of telling this story truthfully? (Abdel Karim Samara, 13 - 8 - 2003 , Open Democracy)

There were three most obvious shortcomings in these stations’ reporting. The first and most important was their inability to communicate the stance taken by the Iraqi people towards its regime. We did not see one Iraqi criticising the regime. Was this due to state censorship or to self-censorship due to fear of the regime and its oppression?

The second fault was any knowledge of the structure of the Iraqi opposition, its capabilities and internal relations. This was shown in their common assumption 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 they were merely short exchanges of fire. [...]

Despite these criticisms, the war showed the media’s importance in the Arab world, where freedom of expression has become 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. Intense and bulky doses of the war as fed to us by the media forced us to examine phrases such as “gaining victory over the infidels and gangs of international rogues,” as the Iraqi information minister put it, and “the liberation of Iraq” as the American president and his secretary of defence put it. All previous political assessments of 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.

This is how the pressures of globalization are supposed to work, but we'll see. Posted by Orrin Judd at August 15, 2003 5:41 PM