• Palestine: Without the media reforms will fail  - an interview withWafa Abdul Rahman
Media reform must be undertaken as part of a comprehensive reform program that cannot be carried out in isolation.

• The Jordanian experience  - Amy Henderson
Jordan's "new era" has been filled with ambiguities and inconsistent policies toward the media that find their roots in Jordan's political structure.

• Satellite TV and democracy  - S. Abdallah Schleifer
The most servile, the most state controlled, the least professional of all media in the Arab world, was suddenly refashioned in a satellite format.

• A vicious cycle  - Amin Tarzi
Slowly, serious and sustained discussion on reform may make its way to the airwaves in the region.

Palestine: Without the media reforms will fail
an interview with Wafa Abdul Rahman

BI: What is so important about media reform and what reform is needed?

Abdul Rahman: Media reform must be undertaken as part of a comprehensive reform program that cannot be carried out in isolation. Media reform means re-examining the laws of the media, and structural reform of the ministry of information and other concerned official bodies in terms of their responsibilities and functions.

Jordan's "new era" has been filled with ambiguities and inconsistent policies toward the media that find their roots in Jordan's political structure. Historically, the media interests of the monarchy and those of a conservative establishment that supported it were, for the most part, one and the same. Now they no longer necessarily coincide.

Since King Abdullah II ascended to the throne, inconsistencies in media policy have derived from a battle of wills between the country's liberal reformers, who want to see a reorganization of the social bases of power and a deepening of economic reform, and status quo conservatives. The king and a small coterie of advisors and officials seem frequently torn between the impulses of both. For the sake of the country's long-term stability, the regime advocates reform. At the same time, there is a prevailing concern that too much reform--especially during times of crisis--could facilitate destabilization. Consequently, Abdullah at times has led the charge toward greater openness only to be blocked by the establishment, and at other moments retreated, appearing in lock step with conservatives.

The first four years of the king's reign were replete with instances in which establishment conservatives successfully blocked media reform initiatives. Abdullah urged the government to open the country to media investments, apparently to attract some of the Europe-based Arab satellite business to Jordan. Advocates of the idea cited three possible advantages: to draw high-tech, capital intensive industry to the country, to absorb excess human resources, and to create competition for local media, raising the standards of national journalism.

The government and parliament colluded to derail the project, however: issues as diverse as national security and pornography were drawn into the debate. A draft law written by an unenthusiastic government was shelved, and was anyway nothing to write home about. It delineated a media investment "zone": media based there would be free. The Jordanian media, however, was not entitled to invest there, and consequently would remain subject to Jordan's restrictive press and publication law and the penal code. Parliament did not accept the government's distinction between Jordanian and foreign media, and expressed its anxiety about the pending loosening of social and moral codes should such a zone ever materialize. The project was shelved. A few months later, Dubai seized the idea as a component of its own high-tech drive.

Media privatization has also been demonstrative of the regime's perplexity over how best to deal with the media. In 2024, Abdullah recommended that the government divest from major newspapers. Several proposals were advanced and by May 2024 the "privatization" was complete. It involved the Jordan Press Foundation, in which the state relinquished 6.7 percent of its equity. Prior to the sale, the ownership structure was as follows: the government owned 15 percent of its shares through the Jordan Investment Corporation, JIC (the investment arm of the government), and 47 percent through the Social Security Corporation, SSC. The majority of JIC shares were purchased by the SSC, in effect a sale from the left hand to the right. Government ownership in the other major papers (30 percent of Al Dustour and 22 percent of Al Arab Al Yawm) has not changed and the equity of the fully government-owned Jordan Radio and Television and the Jordan News Agency, Petra, is not likely to see the auction block any time soon.

Efforts to reform the media sector have not only met resistance from establishment conservatives, but also from the media itself. Conservatives have traditionally benefited from state ownership of media. Appointments and positions in the media have been distributed as patronage: top appointments are often politically motivated, and less senior positions were often filled through the establishment network. This has facilitated the deterioration of professional journalism and an acceptance of mediocrity at some of the largest media institutions. Across-the-board reorganization and restructuring of the media threaten to reveal the weaknesses of unqualified personnel in the face of competition, as well as curb the establishment's ability to dominate public discourse and distribute patronage.

There are several independent weekly newspapers in circulation, mostly opposition papers, and one independent daily, Al Ghad, established in 2024. However, the plethora of independent publications has not facilitated the media's mobilization. On the contrary, the Jordanian media is a house divided, and consequently, it cannot stand up to state pressure. The mainstream media frequently accuses the tabloid press of compromising professional credibility, while the opposition accuses the mainstream media of complicity with the regime.

Media reform has anyway been something of a moot point since September 11, an event that revealed the extent to which the regime still grapples with the national security conundrum. Temporary amendments to the penal code, subject to no parliamentary oversight, were swift and expanded the already vague limits on free expression delineated in the press and publications law. The amendments allowed courts to temporarily or permanently ban publications for publishing false information or rumors, aggravating social norms, inciting violence or hatred, or harming the honor or reputation of individuals. Offenders were threatened with three-year prison sentences, fines of some $7,000, or both. The new amendments also expanded an article that criminalizes insulting the dignity of the king, and made such offenses eligible for trial in the state security court.

Similar restrictions were already included in the law, which further prohibits the publication of any information or image that jeopardizes relations with friendly states, insults the head of friendly states, degrades religion or undermines the country's economic and fiscal stability. In light of continuing Palestinian-Israeli violence and the US-led war on Iraq and continuing instability there, these restrictions were kept in place. The effects have been dramatic and have included the arrest and imprisonment of several journalists and the closure of media offices in Amman. The local media has since complained of a lack of access to information and harassment from the authorities (including being summoned by the security services for questioning, unofficial threats, direct interference in work, official threats, and denial of entry into public activities).

Last year, the government proposed amendments to the press and publications law that would forbid the arrest or imprisonment of journalists for press offenses and began drafting an access to information law, while journalists also cited a noticeable decline in interference by the authorities in their work and a drop in the detainment of journalists. But while overt repression has abated, there have been as yet no substantial changes to the difficult legal environment in which the media has always operated.

Compounding matters, the only institution that represents the media, the Jordan Press Association, has typically been an extension of the state's repressive media policy, not a shield against it. A journalist not a member in good standing of the JPA can be legally barred from working. However, it is often the JPA, not the government, that endeavors to apply this rule to the media. In fact, the government has in the past urged the JPA to curb its enthusiasm for harassing journalists: the JPA tried to take the government to court to force it to apply the law.

The liberal-conservative competition within and for the media is likely to re-ignite if Abdullah moves ahead with political reforms as he has promised to do later this year. Nevertheless, the media may prove to be one of the most difficult sectors to reform. There is resistance from within, and, added to the fact that many Jordanians genuinely fear retaliation for speaking their minds openly, the media enjoys little credibility among the population. Few voices have been raised in opposition to frequent government crackdowns on the press in the last decade. Consequently, the reformers within may have difficulty in finding allies in civil society to take up the cudgels for a fully free and independent Jordanian press.- Published 26/5/2005 (c) bitterlemons-international.org

Amy Henderson is a Middle East-based freelance journalist and the former national news editor of the Jordan Times.

Little more than a decade ago there was no such thing as television journalism in the Arab world. State-owned national television channels had news bulletins, but in the sense of news value--stories covered and transmitted because of some intangible but intrinsic news value--there was nothing.

News bulletins were dominated by footage covering ceremonial occasions of state, and this held true whether the country was a republic or a monarchy: the ruler and/or prime minister receiving newly accredited diplomats; hosting another head of state, inaugurating a new dam or some other massive facility, etc.

In this sealed universe, there were no television reporters, just a cameraman who recorded the event, for his film or tape to be played directly that evening on the news, while a presenter read wire copy from the state or semi-official news agency that had covered the same event. Unlike radio there was no comparison effect. Terrestrial television could be relayed the length of a country but not beyond its borders. No one in the Arab world could see BBC television news, or any other broadcaster (be they American, French, or Italian), unlike BBC Arabic Radio Service, which anyone could listen to.

Regional news--a coup, a civil war, a massacre--might never be broadcast or perhaps a report would finally appear a few days late because the channel had waited for the political leadership to decide what its response to the event might be. Of course this could be ludicrous since short-wave radio--BBC Arabic service, Voice Of America and Monte Carlo Arabic radio--would already be reporting on these events. Most notoriously in that vein, was the failure of the official Saudi media to mention the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait for more than 48 hours after the event.

What changed all of this--and here is a pertinent lesson of how benign foreign intervention by force of example can be a motor for change in the Arab world--was CNN coverage of the build-up and the eventual combat between the American-led alliance and Iraq in 1991. Given the need to dispel outrageous Iraqi radio propaganda, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and other Arab countries in the alliance pulled down CNN coverage of the build-up and then the war, subsequently re-transmitting them via terrestrial television. Suddenly, Arabs could see events in the Arab world significantly covered.

Saudi private interests with very close ties to the palace sensed the importance of satellite news and the potential for mischief if placed in the wrong hands. They quickly moved after the war ended to establish a satellite channel with morning and evening news bulletins transmitting real reports--footage from the field edited into meaningful news stories by Arab correspondents in the field with their cameramen. That channel, MBC, was based in London where there was already a cadre of expatriate Arab journalists trained to international standards. There the ambience in no way resembled that of state television channels, which were literally extensions of the ministries of information, invariably occupying the same building.

Again one must acknowledge outside influence, in this case at work as the London ambience, where coverage of political life could be simplified into a schematic which goes, "Here is a problem; here are the contending solutions to that problem." This contrasts vividly with what had become, after the 1948 defeat in Palestine and the waves of coup d'etats and revolutions that followed, the prevailing mode of thought and expression in Arab media reflected above all in the commentaries of the state-owned or directed printed press: every problem has its roots in a conspiracy, and the contending issues were between rival or shifting conspiracy theories.

In such an environment, real news reports from the field, narrated in Arabic and available on television, were a stunning experience. MBC quickly acquired a large audience, particularly in the Gulf and eastern Saudi Arabia, because the satellite signal was downloaded in Bahrain and retransmitted terrestrially.

Other channels followed, notably in 1996 when the newly installed Emir of Qatar provided funds and facility to launch Al Jazeera, approximating the BBC model of publicly-owned but not state-controlled television. The core staff at Al Jazeera had all been trained and served as broadcasters at BBC.

By now, dishes and a number of entertainment satellite channels were proliferating across most of the Arab world. That proliferation of dishes provided Al Jazeera with a rapidly growing mass audience, now estimated at more than 50 million viewers. Because Al Jazeera is a 24/7 news operation, it quickly seized the leadership position in Arab satellite broadcasting; a position that would not be significantly challenged until just before the invasion of Iraq, when the MBC group gathered together a group of Arab journalists, including the first news director at Al Jazeera and a number of Al Jazeera reporters, and launched Al Arabiya. The competition has had a positive effect. Arab satellite television journalists are less likely to indulge their personal ideological takes on the news when they know a more detached, and thus a more reliable version of the same event is available on the TV screen just one click away on everybody's remote control.

It was an amazing historic reverse: The most servile, the most state controlled, the least professional of all media in the Arab world, was suddenly refashioned in a satellite format, providing news reports more in accord with international professional standards than any other form of media in the region. And because those reports can be up-linked from Europe to a satellite that can download these reports to dishes anywhere in the Arab world, it is un-censorable.

Both Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya responded to widespread concern and anger in the Arab world with America's deepening involvement in the region--in particular the invasion and occupation of Iraq and what has appeared as continued US support for the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories--by increasing coverage of American political life. This involved providing intensive coverage of the 2024 US presidential election campaign. The result was extraordinary coverage of the American democratic process starting from the time of the primaries.

In contrast to the usual confrontational talk shows, Al Jazeera's programs, "From Washington" and "The American Presidential Face", had a distinctly informative style. These shows were obviously designed to help viewers newly interested in American politics to better understand what was happening during the campaign, and to grasp the basic workings of the American democratic system. The coverage deepened the Arab world's factual, rather than imaginatively preconceived, understanding of America. As an additional side effect, it provided a familiarization course in the operations of a functioning democracy. A similar effect has been underway in the intense reporting on political life in England by the Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya bureaus in London. The stimulus may be issues of particular interest to an Arab audience, such as the debates in parliament related to the Iraqi invasion, but the side effect has been a protracted education in the democratic process.

Two other elections have had a profound effect on stimulating the democratic process in the Arab world. On the one hand there were the Palestinian presidential and municipal elections. In the latter, Hamas entered the political process and did quite well, suggesting to Fateh's leadership that there is a price to be paid for the sort of casual corruption that characterized the Palestinian Authority's rule in the territories since Oslo.

And the election with the greatest impact of all was the one in Iraq, in which millions of Arabs watched millions of Iraqis braving terrorist threats to vote in a highly competitive election. And the great question those elections pose in the consciousness of every Arab everywhere is: If free, competitive elections can be held in Iraq, despite a violent insurgency and a foreign occupation, then why not here? - Published 26/5/2005 (c) bitterlemons-international.org

S. Abdallah Schleifer is director of the Adham Center at the American University in Cairo and publisher/senior editor of the journal Transnational Broadcasting Studies at www.tbsjournal.com. He recently presented a paper on this topic at the Foreign Policy Research Institute.

The relationship between mass media and reform in any part of the world cannot be underestimated. It becomes a crucial factor for the advancement of reform programs or the lack thereof when Arab countries and Iran come into the equation. In most cases in these countries reform, whether political or social, has been nonexistent or limited to half-measures.

In such social and political settings, the media itself is often a victim of state and/or self-imposed censorship, and needs reform to allow it to become freer and thus a voice in the promotion of further steps toward agendas of reform. This is at best a vicious cycle for most media outlets in these countries, where states either directly own the means of mass communication or have strict guidelines for them to abide by.

Traditionally print media, both in the Arab countries and particularly in Iran, have had a little more freedom to discuss issues related to reform than radio and especially television.

In Iran, with the growing inability of the "reform" camp headed by President Mohammad Khatami to make good on most of its promises, the print media has also lost some of the zeal in displayed in the late 1990s. At that time it did question government policies, and encouraged reform in most sectors of the country's public and political life, often at great risk. Since then, conservative forces have retaken control of the country's Majlis (parliament), and the upcoming presidential elections seem likely to produce a conservative or conservative-leaning president. As such, the chances of fundamental reform are close to nil, and it is likely that internal media outlets with broad reach that try to promote such agendas will be forced out of business.

In the Arab world, the "Al-Jazeera revolution" is certainly making waves. The advent of cable television channels, whether financed by local governments, foreign states, individuals or terrorist organizations, has had a seemingly irreversible impact on the way Arabs from Morocco to Iraq and from Marseilles to Dearborn see themselves and the outside world. However, while Arabs now know more about one another and the outside world, the impact of this revolution on reform inside Arab countries has been slow.

Al-Jazeera's self-professed code of ethics states that the news organization adheres to "journalistic values of honesty...independence... giving no priority to commercial or political consideration over professional ones". The organization is partially true to its code in that it certainly does not give priority to commercial considerations--it has yet to break even financially. However, in order for it to function someone has to pay the bill, in this case the government of Qatar. Al-Jazeera's rivals, such as Al-Arabiyya and Abu Dhabi TV, fare no better.

Part of Al-Jazeera's lack of financial independence may be directly related to the fact that many Arab governments, fearful of it becoming a stronger voice in promotion of reform, are reluctant to buy commercial slots in the network. However, another aspect of the race between freedom of the press--in and of itself an important reform--and acceleration of reform projects in general, has to do with governments' willingness to allow for gradual change.

Generally speaking, in the Arab countries the pace of reform, where it exists at all, is still dictated by the states involved. The relative freedom of the media, especially with the advent of the cable television networks, is a welcome phenomenon. But this can only be fuel to the motors of change. In some cases the engines are running very slowly, while in others they have yet to be started.

This is not to say that the media has no bearing on reform agendas in Arab states or in Iran, not only as fuel but even as a spark. On the contrary, with the greater accessibility of cross-border mass media resources, local governments find it much more difficult to justify the malaise in their societies, and people do get the idea that positive change is a real possibility. Of course the same mass media outlets are also being used by some states, either by design or unintentionally, to divert attention away from domestic issues such as reform, to foreign conflicts or sufferings elsewhere.

The main shortcoming of media outlets such as Al-Jazeera and its peer stations is that, willingly or not, they devote most of their coverage to programs that allow the local Arab states to hide from their responsibilities to their own citizens and afford them the opportunity to delay reforms at home.

For Arab mass media, the genie is nevertheless out of the bottle. Slowly, especially as viable independent cable television stations begin operating in the region, serious and sustained discussion on reform may make its way to the airwaves in the region. In the case of Iran, unfortunately, the immediate future points to more restrictions on the media and less reform, unless reformers somehow manage to galvanize enough mass support to change the status quo.- Published 26/5/2005 (c) bitterlemons-international.org

Dr. Amin Tarzi is director of Middle East Studies, Marine Corps University. The opinions and conclusions expressed herein are those of the individual author and do not necessarily represent the views of either the Marine Corps University or any other US governmental agency. References to this paper should include the foregoing statement.