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America's media bubble

Written by Lawrence Pintak
Saturday, 19 April 2008
THE UNITED STATES no longer controls the script. That's a reality Democratic congressional leaders must digest as they seek to recast America's relationship with the world.u There used to be a time when the US media wrote the global narrative. The world saw itself through a largely American camera lens. No more. This week's launch of al-Jazeera International, the English speaking cousin to the channel the Bush administration loves to hate, is just the latest reminder of that. US foreign policy is being reflected through a blinding array of prisms. Yet America continues to pursue an analogue communications strategy in a digital age. Just look at the satellite landscape. Here in the Middle East, we can watch more than 300 channels, from Hezbollah's al-Manar (labeled a terrorist organization by the United States) to Fox News (which, to borrow Fox's favorite line, "some people say" is the moral equivalent). Turkey, India, Singapore -- wherever you look overseas, all-news satellite channels are de rigueur. Tri lingual France 24 launches in a few weeks to bring "French values" to global coverage. China has a channel. Russia Today will soon broadcast in Arabic. Latin America now has a continent-wide all-news channel. Africans are also talking about one. And then, of course, there's the Internet. The perspective of these channels is different. So is the spin. The American election was a big story here in the Middle East, but cheering Democrats shared the screen with gut-wrenching images of blood-drenched Palestinian children torn to shreds by Israel tank shells as they lay asleep in their beds. More of those "birth pangs of a new Middle East" that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice talked about last summer. Americans may be talking change, but Arabs, watching those scenes repeat endlessly through the day, saw business as usual. Journalistic bias? Like terrorism, it's in the eye of the beholder. After five years of Sturm and Drang from the Bush administration about the evils of the Arab media, American officials still don't really get it. The genie is out of the lamp. News people abroad -- whether Arabs, Irish, or Zimbabweans -- do see the world, and US policy, differently than their American counterparts. Their news organizations will report differently. It's a fact. Even more important , every statement, every offhand comment is reported instantly. Live. 24/7. There is no place to hide. No such thing as Davos rules. Just ask the pope. Like politics, all policy is local. It's no longer just about how it plays in Peoria. There's also Peshawar and Pretoria. American officials can no longer say one thing and do another. TV footage of babies killed with US ordinance has far more influence on perceptions of policy than all the feel-good speeches aimed at the heartland. Ditto images of the president in front of a huge cross at a gathering of evangelical groups. Who says it's not a Christian war on Islam? Don't underestimate the audience. They are media-savvy. Take the Thai cleric who said the Saddam Hussein verdict was timed to affect US "domestic politics." And he's 2,000 miles from the Middle East. Imagine what Arabs were thinking. Yet American officials who should know better still don't get it. A US public diplomacy official involved in communicating with the Muslim world recently asked me if there were Arab blogs. Only hundreds -- and they are changing the face of Arab politics. That's what happens when critical positions are seeded with True Believers instead of diplomatic pros. The reality of the new digital world means that Americans may not like what they see. These channels will show the often yawning gap between words and deeds. "We are not there to be diplomatically correct," al-Jazeera chief Wadah Khanfar recently told me. "We are there to practice journalism." Yes, some of the coverage -- whether on al-Jazeera or other channels -- will be biased, distorted, and sensational. Deal with it. American officials must engage, not demonize. They must find a way to communicate, not preach. But most of all, they must be aware that their every word and deed is being viewed real-time, often in a split screen showing the reality for folks at the receiving end of US policy. As Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told Western broadcasters last week, "To have a lack of communication between cultures at a time of such technological development is very sad and contradictory." The talk was carried live on satellite TV. The question is, was anyone in Washington watching? Lawrence Pintak is director of the Adham Center for Electronic Journalism at The American University in Cairo. His most recent book is "Reflections in a Bloodshot Lens: America, Islam & the War of Ideas."
Last Updated ( Monday, 12 May 2008 )