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Today's
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February
4, 2004
Brian
McKinlay
Bush's Australian Deputy: Howard's
Last Round Up?
February
3, 2004
Alan
Maass
The
Dems' New Mantra: What They Really Mean by "Electability"
Nick
Halfinger
How the Other Half Lives: Embedded
in Iraq
Rahul
Mahajan
Our True Intelligence Failure
Neve Gordon
The Only Democracy in the Middle East?
Laura
Carlsen
Mexico: Two Anniversaries; Two Futures
Jordan
Green
Democratic Patronage in Northern New
Mexico
Terry
Lodge
An Open Letter to Michael Powell from the Boobs & Body Parts
Fairness Campaign
Hammond
Guthrie
Investigating the Meaningless
Website
of the Day
Waging Peace
February
2, 2004
Gary
Leupp
The Buddhist Nun in Tom Ridge's Jail
Justin
E.H. Smith
The Manners of Their Deaths: Capital Punishment in a Smoke-Free
Environment
Tom
Wright
The Prosecution of Captain Yee
Winslow
Wheeler
Inside the Bush Defense Budget
Lee Ballinger
Janet Jackson's Naked Truth
Leonard
Pitts, Jr
For Blacks, the Game of Justice is
Rigged
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Hollow Candidate:
The Trouble with Howard Dean
Website
of the Day
Resistance:
In the Eye of the American Hegemon
Jan. 31 / Feb 1, 2004
Paul
de Rooij
For Whom the Death Tolls: Deliberate
Undercounting of Coalition Fatalities
Bernard
Chazelle
Bush's Desolate Imperium
Jack
Heyman
Bushfires on the Docks
Christopher
Reed
Broken Ballots
Michael
Donnelly
An Urgent Plea to Progressives: Don't Give in to Fear
Rob Eshelman
The Subtle War
Lee
Sustar
Palestine and the Anti-War Movement
George
Bisharat
Right of Return
Ray
McGovern
Nothing to Preempt
Brian Cloughley
Enron's Beady-Eyed Sharks
Conn
Hallinan
Nepal, Bush & Real WMDs
Kurt Nimmo
The Murderous Lies of the Neo-Cons
Phillip
Cryan
Media at the Monterrey Summit
Christopher
Brauchli
A Speech for Those Who Don't Read
John
Holt
War in the Great White North
Mickey
Z.
Clueless in America: When Mikey Met Wesley
Mark
Scaramella
The High Cost of Throwing Away the Key
Tariq Ali
Farewell, Munif
Ben
Tripp
Waiter! The Reality Check, Please
Poets'
Basement
LaMorticella, Guthrie, Thomas and Albert
January 30, 2004
Saul
Landau
Cuba High on Neo-Con Hit List
Michael
Donnelly
Bush's Second Front: The War in
the Woods
Elaine
Cassel
Worse Than Jacko: Child Abuse at Gitmo
David Vest
More Halliburton News, Brought to You by Halliburton
Mike
Whitney
The Kay Report: Still Defending Aggression
David
Miller
The Hutton Whitewash
Sam
Husseini
How Many People Must Die Because of This "Mistake",
Senator Kerry?
January 29, 2004
Patricia
Nelson Limerick
John Ehrlichman, Environmentalist
Ron
Jacobs
Homeland Security and "Legalized"
Immigration
Rahul Mahajan
New Hampshire v. Iraq
Greg
Weiher
Bush Calls for Preemptive Strike on
Moon and Mars
Norman
Solomon
The State of the Media Union
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Does NH Mean Anything?
January
28, 2004
Kathy
Kelly
Bearing Witness Against Teachers of
Torture and Assassination
January
27, 2004
Steve
Philion
Ritter Was Right: My Exchange with
CNN's Aaron Brown
Daniel
Ellsberg
Leak Against This War: Expose the
Lies from the Inside
C.G.
Estabrook
Can George Ever Really be Elected
President?
Josh
Frank
Hot Coals in Vermont: Dean's Smoke
Screens
Greg
Moses
Racism 101 All Over Again
Gilad
Atzmon
Blood, Soil and Art
Mike
Ferner
"We're All Lied To": an
Interview with Bruce Cockburn in Baghdad
Hammond
Guthrie
General Disorders of the Day
January
26, 2004
Sean
Donahue
The Toxic Career of Rand Beers: Kerry's
Drug War Zealot
Gary
Leupp
David Kay's Admission
January
24/5, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
Iraq's Shia: "Our Day Has
Come"
Laura
Flanders
State of the Conservative Union
Simon Helweg-Larsen
Enter Berger: Signs of Hope in
Guatemala
Dave
Lindorff
Ground Control to Maj. George
Susan Davis
The Birdwatcher Menace
Alexander
Cockburn
The Fog of Cop Out: McNamara 10,
Morris 0
January
23, 2004
Yonathan
Shapira
An Israeli Pilot Speaks Out
Standard
Schaefer
Italian Philosopher Giorgio Agamben
Protests US Travel Policy
Josh
Frank
In Defense of Polluters: Howard Dean's
Vermont
William
A. Cook
Rule by the Corrupt and the Capricious
January
22, 2004
Sam
Smith
Howards End?
Patricia
Koyce Wanniski
Lost in Space
Alexander
Lukin
Putin and the Clans
Katherine
van Wormer
Dry Drunk Confirmed: O'Neill's
Revelations and Bush's Mind
Forrest
Hylton
The Prisoner, the President and the
Mafia
January 19, 2004
Justin E. H. Smith
Inside
America's Prisons: From Corrections to Retribution
Richard W. Behan
The GOP, Inc.
Ray McGovern
Bush's
State of the Union: Humility or More Hyperbole?
Werther
SOTUS:
the Stalin Moment of America's Nomenklatura
Phillip Cryan
Media Collusion in Colombia's War
Lee Sustar
A New Strategy to Reverse Labor's Decline?
Arthur Versluis
Great Lakes as Commodity: Privatizing Water
Uri Avnery
Anti-Semitism:
a Practical Manual
Steve Perry
Fresh Crack from Hawkeye State
January 17 / 18, 2004
Fadi Kiblawi and Will
Youmans
The
Use and Abuse of MLK Jr by Israel's Apologists
Joshua Muldavin
and Joseph Nevins
Blaming the Symptoms
Jeffrey St. Clair
Bad Days at Indian Point: Inside America's Most Dangerous Nuclear
Plant
Brian Cloughley
Iron Hammers in Iraq
Saul Landau
Fog of War: Vietnam and Iraq
M. Shahid Alam
Lerner, Said and the Palestinians
Richard Manning
Food Poisoning as Background Noise
Marjorie Cohn
The Guantanamo Concentration Camp
Mike Whitney
Scalia and Opus Dei: Radicals on the Court
Sadik Kassim
Meet Our New Saddam: Islam Karimov
Carol Norris
Arnold
and Bush's Numbers Don't Add Up
Joe Quandt
Suicide
Bombers: The Clash of Absurdities
David Krieger
Imagining MLK Jr at 75
Bruce Jackson
Making War, Making Movies
Ron Jacobs
Revolution in the Air: a review
Richard Edmondson
Rupert Murdoch and My Sister
Richard Forno
Apologizing for Preemption: Evil, Perle and Frum
Poets' Basement
Holt, Mickey Z, Albert & Guthrie
January 16, 2004
Kathy Kelly
A Visit
to Umm Qasr Prison
William S. Lind
More
Thoughts on 4th Generation Warfare
Gillian Russom
So.
Cal Grocery Strikers Speak Out: "We Need Action!"
Ari Shavit
Survival
of the Fittest? An Interview with Benny Morris
Adi Ophir
Genocide Hides Behind Expulsion: a Response to Benny Morris
Dave Lindorff
The General's Henchman: Michael Moore Smears Kucinich
Steve Perry
Iowa Death Trip 2
January 15, 2004
Veteran Intelligence
Professionals for Sanity
Memo
to the President: Your State of the Union Address
John Chuckman
Dry
Hole in the Oval Office: President from Podunk Drilling, Inc
Chris Floyd
Mind Over Matter
Gil-Scott Heron
Whitey on the Moon
Gary Leupp
The
Silk Road: Random Thoughts on the Bam Earthquake and Satan
January 14, 2004
Greg Moses
Happy
Birthday, Dr. King: To Write Off the South is to Surrender to
Bigots
Kurt Nimmo
Bush and the Supremes: Amputating the Bill of Rights
Dave Lindorff
Preview of Iowa? Pennsylvania Straw Poll Spells Trouble for Traditional
Dems (and Dean)
Jason Leopold
O'Neill Claims Backed by Rumsfeld / Wolfowitz War Letters to
Clinton
Alexander Cockburn
Bush,
Oil and Iraq: Some Truth at Last
January 13, 2004
William S. Lind
How 2004
Looks from Potsdam
M. Junaid Alam
Do Iraqis Have a Right to Resist?
Mickey Z
Snipers:
No Nuts in Iraq
Adolfo Gilly
Chonchocoro:
The Prisoner and the Presidents
Steve Perry
You Love God, Right?
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
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for More Stories.
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February
4, 2004
Palestine and the
Media
The
Imagery of Arabs
By JUDITH BROWN
After years of military occupation, Palestinians
have many demands on their limited resources. Managing the media
gets a low priority when faced with humanitarian demands from
a population that needs amongst other things health care, education
and replacement housing. Yet managing the media is an important
way of getting your message across to a Western public that sympathises
when Israelis are killed by Palestinian suicide bombers, while
Palestinians are portrayed as a barbaric people who hate Israel
and do not want peace.
In a conflict there are always two opposing
viewpoints. The Palestinians want to present their side but are
poorly resourced compared with Israel's efficient and effective
media machine.
There are undoubtedly structural problems
that make it easier for journalists to see the Israeli view--each
Western journalist registers with the Israeli authorities, they
have a handler and carry a beeper provided by Israel which keeps
them up to date with news stories. They live and work in Jerusalem,
where they are subject to the same fears of suicide bombs that
helps them identify with Israelis. By comparison, currently only
the Israeli award-winning journalist Amira Hass lives in the
Palestinian territories. Access to the areas where Palestinians
live is difficult. At times when there is an important news story,
journalists are more likely to be denied access. Media offices
are in Jerusalem, but Palestinian journalists no longer have
press cards and most cannot travel into the city, which limits
the chances of them working for foreign media agencies.
Visiting foreign journalists frequently
stay in the American Colony Hotel in East Jerusalem. They have
physical problems in accessing stories in the occupied territories
and linguistic problems in Arabic translation. When writing stories,
journalists use a Palestinian programme producer whose job is
to find out where the journalist needs to go, who they should
interview, how they can get there and who should translate for
them. Programme producers work on a self-employed basis and get
known by word of mouth--if they have done their job well in the
past, the story gets round and more journalists contact them
in the future. One producer told me how lazy most Western journalists
are. They take the details from her and write the story in their
hotel room or office, while paying her as if they have attended
the story. She felt they could not understand the Palestinian
position when they hadn't experienced it. She said: "Some
of them have not even experienced a checkpoint--sitting there
for three hours, hungry or thirsty, wanting to go to the toilet,
the crying children, the heat or cold. Not all, but most. They
cut and paste from AFP and Reuters."
What counts as news is also a problem.
Desperate to tell the Palestinian story and also with a financial
need to work, the Palestinian producer I interviewed explained
she has a vested interest in contacting foreign journalists whenever
there is a news item. Over Christmas 2003 there were 18 deaths
in Nablus and a mother whose babies died due to delays at a checkpoint.
No journalist was interested. They all gave excuses--it was a
holiday, that sort of thing was not news any more. She said that
once Palestinian deaths were just numbers to journalists, but
now they are not even that. Even when Western journalists do
get to stories, she said they often sanitise it. She challenged
some German journalists when they missed out important parts
of a story. They replied that they wanted to stay in Israel and
get permission to come back the next time and that limited what
they could do. She was passionate--"Either you are a journalist
or you are not, there is no half-way journalism. There is a price
for being a journalist, for being prepared to find out the truth.
You have to pay for it. You are either a journalist or a collaborator.
I can't say it is all who work like this, but it is the majority
who take this attitude." Despite all of their handicaps,
I met courageous Palestinians working in the media who persisted
in trying to get their stories out despite the odds. There was
no doubt they were efficient and resourceful. But within the
Palestinian Authority itself, there is room for considerable
improvement.
Despite the PA headquarters being housed
in a half-demolished building in Ramallah, Arafat and his spokespersons
are still in high demand from journalists throughout the world.
They manage the media circus with no press/media department,
no media budget and not even one expert in media management skills.
There are also internal tensions. Recently Palestinians close
to the PA told me that if a Palestinian receives favourable reports
from the West concerning the way they present themselves, they
are seen as a threat to those by the top. Instead of encouraging
good communicators, their activities are often curtailed.
There is no monitoring of the coverage
of media outlets by the PA and no sanctions if media outlets
misrepresent them. A US station recently did a "hatchet
job" on Arafat, but it is believed that he did not even
know about it. A Palestinian spokesman told me there should be
monitoring and restricted access to stories to channels that
routinely misinterpret information.
Every Palestinian spokesman within the
PA works as an individual. Several times I was told that after
an important meeting, a number of senior Palestinians leave the
room to talk to waiting journalists without planning what they
are going to say. In consequence, often they give slightly different
stories; there is nothing that detracts from the value of a story
more than different versions. The impression gained is that the
story is manufactured or the Palestinians are in total disarray.
There is no system of deciding how to present their story to
gain maximum impact or decide what words most clearly express
their position. This makes a big difference to the way that a
sophisticated Western audience views the Palestinian cause.
In an attempt to overcome this, a Palestine
Media Center was set up in Ramallah with the idea that it would
be a coordinating body that would be proactive in providing services
for foreign journalists. It did not make a significant difference,
and in consequence it now has a smaller budget and its activities
have been seriously curtailed. Senior Palestinians give different
stories concerning the reason why it was not effective, including
lack of sufficient funding, or lack of experienced media managers
who really knew what needed to be done. Whatever the reason,
apart from their website it offers little else to visiting journalists
now.
There have been some serious mistakes
in presentation of the Palestinian story, but none greater than
the failure to address the foreign press after the Camp David
talks. Palestinians gave different reasons--one person said it
was because there were difficulties of opinion within the Palestinian
team, which meant they did nothing because they could not agree
what to do. Another said it was because Arafat felt that if he
did not rock the boat, the Israelis would come back and complete
the peace deal. Whatever the reason, the Palestinians were unfairly
blamed for the failure by Bill Clinton and Ehud Barak and did
not answer back, which made the world think they must be guilty.
One Palestinian negotiator independently decided to write an
account in the New York Times, and Arafat responded by ordering
his arrest. The story stayed hidden for a year and after that
it was too late--no-one was interested in a stale story and the
world had moved on.
Sometimes Palestinians get their stories
heard despite all the odds. At the recent Aqaba summit, Israel
turned up with a coach filled with 25 press officers and a coordinator
with whom journalists could book their place at different press
conferences in a variety of languages. The Palestinian press
delegation consisted of two people who had made their own way
there, neither of whom was a fluent Arabic speaker--whilst Israel
even offered an Arabic speaking spokesman. Yet the two Palestinian
spokesmen did reasonably well simply because their case was sound.
With a coach-load of presenters they could undoubtedly have done
much better.
The Palestinians have handicaps of coping
with difficult stories such as suicide bombers. Some senior Palestinian
spokesmen say the reason why Israel deliberately killed unarmed
observers in cold blood at the beginning of the second intifada
was to induce fear into people who might otherwise have protested
peacefully, and to elicit an armed response that Palestinian
militant groups obligingly provided. But Palestinians do not
have skill in turning difficult stories around. Journalists who
have Israeli sympathies can and do use skill--for example, Hanan
Ashrawi was asked in all seriousness why Palestinian mothers
allow their children to go out and get killed. This is a skilful
way of blaming the victim that worked as it created an image
of uncaring Palestinian families who are not 'like us'. A Palestinian
media student pointed out the way that Israel uses imagination
in the way that it presents its case. For example, he said that
when CNN showed a story sympathetic to Palestinians, Israeli
television showed it the next day as an example of CNN bias against
them--the student commented: "This is creative, efficient."
More Palestinians are developing media
skills with active media departments in Al Quds and Birzeit universities,
which is a great improvement as only a decade ago Palestinians
as a whole lacked these skills. The draw is well-paid jobs in
the ever-growing satellite channels that are springing up all
over the Arab world. Within Palestine itself, there are many
independent television and radio channels as well as the PA's
channel. But one media worker said Palestinians only want to
say they broadcast and don't care about the quality. The PA studio
is over-staffed and under-skilled, and equipment is often old
and out of date. This is important as with good technical quality,
the stories could be sold to overseas companies. As it is, when
voice and picture don't match up the stories are likely to stay
local. No debate is allowed on difficult issues, corruption might
be mentioned as a word but no names or details get through, giving
the impression of a controlled television that has to worship
the leader. This then leads outsiders to the unfair conclusion
that Palestinian television is merely propaganda and it reduces
credibility when genuine Palestinian suffering is shown. No thought
is given to the way stories are presented. If a Palestinian mother
is bereaved, they show pictures of her when she is wailing in
distress. By comparison, Israeli television interviews show grieving
mothers the day after when they are calm, when they can explain
about their loss and how it affects them and other members of
their family. It is this approach that makes Israelis come over
as more civilised and less barbaric and more like the West.
In the Palestinian Delegation in London,
there is yet more serious under-funding with no budget and not
even one press officer. It relies on organisations such as Arab
Media Watch and the Council for the Advancement of Arab-British
Understanding to monitor the media for it. These organisations
do monitor but they have small budgets and cannot take the place
of a well-organised, well-funded press office. The officers know
some journalists who ring them for information, but there is
no time or budget to get to know journalists informally so they
can develop good working relationships. By comparison, some Arab
embassies in London are now developing fully equipped and staffed
press offices, and if there is an inaccurate story they can immediately
take action, such as inviting the journalist out to discuss it
over lunch, or even arrange a visit so facts on the ground can
be checked by the journalist. The Palestinian Ambassador is held
in great respect, but he is only one person and cannot be proactive
when he interacts with the media. The Palestinian Delegation
merely responds and usually the press only contact it over negative
stories, such as condemning suicide bombs where Israelis have
died. The press do not contact it for confirmation of stories
in which Palestinians are victims and Palestinians have no glamorous
office, nor any carrot or stick they can use to influence journalists
to show Palestinians as a long-suffering nation with people who
deserve justice.
For the future, there is a growing awareness,
an impatience among younger Palestinians who use Israeli media
management as a model that Palestinians should copy. Time and
again I heard Palestinians in all positions defend what Israel
does in media management, saying every nation should put thought
into presenting their own case in the best possible way. For
example, one media student told me he wants to do a PhD looking
at how Israel manages television news. Journalists and younger
people associated with the PA knew exactly what was going wrong,
although they felt frustrated that they could not at this moment
put things right. This raw energy, this unleashing of new media
ideas, will one day energise the Palestinian cause and give it
new impetus. Let us hope that their day is not too far ahead
of us, as winning the media war is the only way that Palestinians
can defeat the odds that are currently heavily stacked against
them. They have the best possible case, they are developing skills,
and they are hungry for the opportunity to show the world what
they think.
Judith Brown,
a member of Arab Media Watch's executive committee who recently
visited Palestine as part of her PhD in "Imagery of Arabs
in the British Media". This essay originally appeared on
Arab Media Watch.
Weekend
Edition Features for February 1, 2004
Paul
de Rooij
For Whom the Death Tolls: Deliberate
Undercounting of Coalition Fatalities
Bernard
Chazelle
Bush's Desolate Imperium
Jack
Heyman
Bushfires on the Docks
Christopher
Reed
Broken Ballots
Michael
Donnelly
An Urgent Plea to Progressives: Don't Give in to Fear
Rob Eshelman
The Subtle War
Lee
Sustar
Palestine and the Anti-War Movement
George
Bisharat
Right of Return
Ray
McGovern
Nothing to Preempt
Brian Cloughley
Enron's Beady-Eyed Sharks
Conn
Hallinan
Nepal, Bush & Real WMDs
Kurt Nimmo
The Murderous Lies of the Neo-Cons
Phillip
Cryan
Media at the Monterrey Summit
Christopher
Brauchli
A Speech for Those Who Don't Read
John
Holt
War in the Great White North
Mickey
Z.
Clueless in America: When Mikey Met Wesley
Mark
Scaramella
The High Cost of Throwing Away the Key
Tariq Ali
Farewell, Munif
Ben
Tripp
Waiter! The Reality Check, Please
Poets'
Basement
LaMorticella, Guthrie, Thomas and Albert
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