The Iraq war of 1990-91 gave rise to the 24-hour news network with CNN for years taking the lead. In the Arab world, the war also ignited a fierce competition with some Arab countries realising that owning the narrative of the conflict is a significant weapon in the war itself.
Within a few years, Arab satellite televisions joined the fray, although mostly propagating the interests of specific governments.
Prior to its invasion of Iraq in 2003, the US invested in an elaborate media apparatus that would ensure that army censors have the last word on what is to be published or omitted. The system seemed very similar to the Military Censor Unit in the Israeli army, itself managed by the IDF Directorate of Military Intelligence to ensure that all information pertaining to military conduct adheres to government standards.
The US military managed the narrative on Iraq through the ‘embedded journalists’, who were told that they should either register with and join US military personnel, or risk their safety. With Iraq being a graveyard for many journalists, hundreds of reporters obliged. The outcome was devastating as Iraq saw the burial of good journalism as well.
Although many in the alternative media fought nobly to glean facts pertaining to the horrendous war, many in the mainstream media toed the line.
The phrase ‘embedded journalism’ came “to evoke an image of the supposedly independent correspondent truckling to military mentors who spoon-feed him or her absurdly optimistic information about the course of the war,” wrote Patrick Cockburn.
The practice was a “a grisly throwback to First World War-style reporting, when appalling butchery in the trenches was presented as a series of judiciously planned advances by British generals.”
One of the greatest harms of this type of reporting is that it reduced Iraq to a massive military battle, devoid of culture or any life that existed beyond the movement of soldiers, ‘insurgents’, ‘coalition troops’, strikes and bombings. The image of the Iraqi, the Arab and the Muslim became militarised, and stereotyped.
But the more recent upheaval in some Arab countries should have been a wake-up call to challenge the established journalistic norm.
Yet, there are few signs that the media representation of the Arab world has shifted greatly.
The typical newsroom set-up, where journalists chase after news headlines dictated by some centralised news gathering agency — often based in some western capital — is still the rule that needs to be broken.
The news narrative of the Arab world has been defined by others and dictated to Arab journalists and audiences. Such a model has not worked in the past, and in the last few years, it has become even more pronounced and dangerous.
There are millions of victims throughout the Arab world, numerous bereaved families, constant streams of refugees and a human toll that cannot be understood or expressed through typical media narration.
The price is too high for this kind of lazy journalism. There is too much at stake for journalism not to be fundamentally redefined by those who are experiencing war, to understand the pulse of the region, fathom the culture and speak the language of the people. The Arab people have indeed spoken and for years, their words were filled with anger and hope. The haunting cries of Syrians and other Arab peoples will forever define the memories of this generation and the next.
But how much is our journalism today a reflection of this reality?
American author and journalist, Ernest Hemingway, once wrote, “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
But modern journalism — at least, the way it is communicated in the Arab world at the moment — hardly bleeds. Under the guise of false objectivity, it remains detached, removed from its immediate reality and is rarely expressive of the seriousness of this difficult transition of our history.
Journalism, however, has not failed. We did. We are the ones still unable to appreciate the gravity of what has befallen our region and, by extension, the world at large. We are the ones still singing the praises of the elites and defending the interests of the few.
As for the people, if we do not neglect them altogether, then we turn their misery into fodder in our political feuds. Equally inexcusable is the fact that the most significant component of our stories and of history are neglected.
It is no secret that Orientalist history still defines the way that history is written in, and about, the Arab world. This must be rejected, not only as a matter of principle, but also because it is both impractical and false.
This Orientalist depiction has afflicted journalism, as well. Others should not define who we are as we are in most urgent need of defining ourselves.
To report on Palestine and Israel, for example, without fully fathoming the historical roots of the tragic story, is to merely be content with providing a superficial account of what ‘both sides’ are saying, often favouring the Israeli side and demonising the Palestinians.
The Palestine scenario is now repeated everywhere. The narrative on Syria and other conflicts are guided by preconceived ‘wisdom’.
Journalism is still failing to break the stronghold of the old paradigm that relegates the people and focuses, instead, on the rulers, politicians, governments and business elites.
The Arab people already have a voice, and an articulate one — one that has been deliberately muted through a massive campaign of misinformation and distortion.
When the media silences the voice of the people, they relegate their rights, demands for freedom, change and democracy.
Our answer should not be to speak on behalf of the people, but to actually listen to them by empowering their voices as they articulate their own aspirations and rightful demands.
Journalism is not a technical profession, a skill to be honed without a heart, without compassion and without a deep understanding of the past and the present. True intellectuals cannot operate outside the realm of history, and the Arab region is now undergoing its greatest historical flux within a century.
For journalists to be relevant, they must abandon their position of being ‘imbedded’ with army men, conveying the views of the military and aspiring to adhere to the standards of military censors.
Nor should they be dictating the news from above, in the same predictable pattern, without truly listening and delving deeper into the story.
They need to understand that a narrative is lacking if it does not begin and end with the people whose story is not a soundbite, but rooted in a complex reality, in which history should be at centre stage.
When entire nations are bleeding, it then becomes necessary for journalists to heed Hemingway’s advice: “sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
Dr Ramzy Baroud is an internationally-syndicated columnist, a media consultant, an author of several books and the founder of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story.
