PressEthic

I attended a conference tonight at the NYU Law School. The theme was: “Al Qaeda Now: The Media and the War on Terror”. Salameh Nematt, Washington bureau chief of Al-Hayat (International Arab Daily), explained that in the Middle East, “the media is controlled, ruled and financed by non democratic Arab regimes” who “have an interest to show any sign of democratization as evil”. David Ensor, CNN’s national security correspondent, said that “in the Muslim world, the US and the Western world appear to be losing the public relation battle handily”.

What should be the US response to this biased media? Obviously, when you promote freedom and democracy, you cannot use this kind of propaganda, even to counterweight another propaganda.

The only thing the western media can do is refrain itself from spreading terrorist messages. David Ensor explained that regarding the tapes CNN receives from terrorist organizations, the network was “pretty cautious these days, and more and more so”.

But the importance of the media should not be overestimated. If people in the Muslim world are angry, it is not only because of what they see on TV, or because of the calls for jihad they read on the Internet (very few people have the Internet in this region).

For example, it is easy to blame Al-Jazeera. But according to Yosri Fouda, Al-Jazeera’s London bureau chief, Al-Jazeera “has never broadcast any beheading”. Fouda said that he was sometimes shocked by the way the US media covers the war. According to him, the US media fails to explain why people commit terrorist attacks.

If people are angry, I think it is mostly because of what they see in their daily lives, not because of what they are told on TV.