Arab media seeks freedom to report

By BBC's Peter Feuilherade in Geneva

The US presence in Iraq has led to more scrutiny of Arab media

Press freedom in the Middle East and North Africa came under scrutiny at the World Electronic Media Forum in Geneva on Wednesday.

Several speakers noted that on 10 December, the anniversary of the 1948 proclamation of the International Declaration of Human Rights, Arab media were getting mixed signals from the West.

After decades of being urged to accommodate opposing views, they were now being pilloried for doing just that, when those dissident voices did not please certain Western governments.

Wadah Khanfar, the managing director of Qatar-based Al-Jazeera TV, told the forum that his channel had been the first pan-Arab TV broadcaster to give a platform to opposition voices, and to provoke discussion on controversial issues.

Al-Jazeera had been accused at various times of being a stooge of the CIA, the Israeli intelligence service Mossad, Al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein, he recalled.

"We can understand the hostility of dictatorial Arab regimes," he said. "But now the US criticism is harsher, ironically. We thought we applied the same international rules of objectivity, balance, and expressing all viewpoints."

A decade of change

There have been many positive steps in the Arab media landscape in the last decade, said Naomi Sakr, a London-based academic specialist in communications in the Middle East.

New satellite channels like Al-Arabiya from Dubai, Al-Jazeera, Abu Dhabi TV and Lebanon's Al-Manar TV have stimulated competition for greater professionalism, and given a voice to Arab dissenters.

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People across the Middle East are now more exposed to modes of expression taken for granted elsewhere in the world.

But with Arab TV stations still dependent on grants with political strings attached, they have yet to achieve political independence from their paymasters.

It is still rare for those who control the Arab media economically to be concerned about satisfying their audiences, and national interests largely continue to dominate output, Sakr added.

With satellite channels targeting the wider pan-Arab audience, local issues do not get the coverage viewers need. Arab media freedom is not only about news and analysis.

There is also a need to deal with sensitive social, educational and health issues through more relevant drama and entertainment programmes, to replace the programming imported from outside the region which ignores Arab concerns and sensitivities, she said.

Radwan Abu Ayyash of the Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation called on Arab audiences to become more liberated in their thoughts and attitudes. "I cannot be free in my TV channel as long as I'm not free as a human being," he said.

Mixed signals

Aidan White, general secretary of the International Federation of Journalists, said Arab media were getting mixed signals.

The US administration, for example, was condemning some Arab journalists for exercising their right to express their views, when they were only reflecting public opinion in their countries.

"We learnt the values of media freedom from the developed Western democracies, but now we don't see the values reflected in the actions of these governments," said a newspaper editor from Bangladesh, as the debate widened to look at media repression around the world.

"Media curbs are becoming more widespread, in the name of state security and the war against terrorism."

Another speaker said the comments of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe - "You report, we deport" - summed up the contempt some governments still had for media freedom.

And a journalist from Lebanon's pro-Hezbollah TV channel Al-Manar expressed the frustration of many journalists from the developing world at the Geneva summit when he said: "Double standards apply on the right to express your opinion freely. It depends on which part of the world you live in."