CAIRO: Arab journalists share a common view with the democratic agenda of the United States but doubt the superpower’s sincerity, according to a survey released by the American University in Cairo (AUC).
A survey conducted by Lawrence Pintak, director of the the Kamal Adham Center for Journalism Training and Research at AUC, along with assistant professor of psychology at the New School for Social Research in New York, Jeremy Ginges, canvassed the opinion of 601 journalists in 13 Arab countries on an array of issues concerning the profession in the region.
The survey found that 75 percent state their main priority as creating “political and social change. The greatest threats facing the Arab world, the results showed, are US policy and lack of political change.
From the pool of journalists, 62 percent have a favorable view of the American people while 83 percent think the US role in the Middle East is negative. A mere 13 percent believe the Bush administration is sincere in the creation of a Palestinian state.
Among the survey results: 76 percent believe no benefits can justify the US invasion of Iraq; 46 percent think Western interference is permissible if beneficial; and 78 percent believe religious leaders should not influence voting.
Daily News Egypt sat with Pintak to discuss the findings of the survey.
Daily News Egypt: What motivated you to conduct this research in the first place?
Lawrence Pintak: We wanted to address the issues raised by years of Bush administration attacks on Arab media. Since 9-11 we’ve been hearing that the Arab media is biased, anti-American etc. I didn’t think that was true from my experience with Arab media. But you need evidence, data, facts, so we set out to do this survey to find out: what is it that Arab media are really focused on? What’s their mission, what are their values, what are their aims?
The main finding in this survey is that Arab journalists aren’t antagonistic towards all things American, but rather what they perceive to be US failings of living up to their own proclaimed values. Why wasn’t that obvious to begin with? Doesn’t that say something about the US rather than Arab journalists?
Absolutely, and it also tracks what the Arab public feel about the US. That while many people support the idea of political democratization, human rights, Palestinian state, they don’t believe those words when they come out of the mouth of George Bush. And Arab journalists in that are no different than Arabs.
It seems pretty explicit in their writings.
You have to look at it from the standpoint of American domestic politics. If Americans are hearing that Arabs are angry in America, it is easier for the administration to say it is because the Arab media is distorting our policies than it is to say it’s because our policies are pissing people off. And they’ve been very effective at doing that, at positioning it that way. And most Americans believe that Arab media is very biased against America and that Al Jazeera is the devil incarnate.
There’s been a concerted effort on the part of the US State Department to engage Arab journalists. Do you think that contributed in part to the findings you reached?
No. The State Department, the public diplomacy people, have stepped up their engagement efforts in recent years, but you’re still hearing from the top that Arab media is biased. While there are good people at the State Department trying to engage with the Arab media, there are others setting this kind of tone.
Seventy-five percent of the journalists in the survey cited “political and social change as their main objective. Might that not be a factor in the distrust towards the US as it supports a plethora of Arab regimes that are anything but purveyors of political and social change?
Absolutely. They don’t believe American policy. When America says it supports democracy or that it supports a Palestinian state, they don’t believe it. If you have an administration that is really committed to these goals, then it has a sympathetic ear in the Arab media.
You call Arab journalists “potential allies for a smart administration. How do you think that can be achieved? And additionally, why must the findings of your survey be cast in the light of what is beneficial to America, rather than a study about Arab journalists in and of itself?
You need to be clear when I say they are potential allies. That doesn’t mean that they like American policy or that they will support American policy in Iraq and Palestine, but that many of the stated goals of the Bush administration – whether they are the real goals or not is another issue – are in line with the mission of Arab journalism: political and social change, human rights etc. So in that, they would be a fair translator of American policies on those issues. But of course, they don’t believe America is genuine when it says it supports a Palestinian state or supports democracy, and we understand why they don’t think America is genuine.
In academia you can do academic research purely for academic reasons, which means that nobody reads it, it has no effect. And from my standpoint, what’s the point? Or you can do research that affects policy. And in this case, this is the kind of research that can affect American public diplomacy policy and general foreign policy in the Middle East by making the next administration – whoever it may be – more aware of their ability to engage and have a conversation with the Arab world rather than to lecture at the Arab world. You can have a conversation by engaging Arab journalists, but if you think all Arab journalists are biased and unfair then you’re not going to have that conversation.
What are your recommendations for the next administration in bridging that gap, in succeeding where the incumbent administration failed?
For a start lose the rhetoric, lose the name calling and actively engage on a level of equality and thoroughness. If you have – from the top down in a new administration – a recognition that Arab media can be a channel to the Arab people, then I think you’re starting from a new place.
If we’re talking about rhetoric, nobody does rhetoric as good as Arab journalists.
Absolutely. Just because 62 percent of the journalists responding to the survey said they have a favorable view of the American people doesn’t mean all Arab journalists love America. There are plenty of Arab journalists who hate America or Americans and American policy and are biased and unfair and unprofessional, but what the survey shows is that there’s a large enough group out there that there can be a dialogue.
You have to evaluate Arab journalism by recognizing that the modern era of Arab journalism is only about a dozen years old and it really only dates to the birth of Al Jazeera. That changed the whole nature of Arab journalism. The arrival of satellite channels not only changed television but print as well.
The survey comes out and says that Arab journalists give each other terrible marks for fairness, independence and professionalism. What is needed to rectify this? Some sort of American-style training?
Arab journalists, and I’m talking broadly obviously, need a lot of training in the fundamentals of journalism because there has been so little training. The problem has been most universities in the Arab world are teaching mass communications, not practical journalism, so it’s on-the-job training.
I cringe when you say American-style, because one of the problems is Americans coming in and telling Arab journalists how they should be doing it. Arab journalists need to decide what Arab journalism is going to be. Now we can teach them the craft, but I can’t teach the mission of Arab journalism. You guys need to decide what the mission of Arab journalism is and what your concept of objectivity and balance and fairness is, whether your mission is to be purely balanced or to drive social change. Those are two different things.
An integral part of the craft, as you call it, are ideals such as objectivity and fairness. So it does influence the modus operandi.
Sure. There’s a ce
rtain set of values journalists aspire to, but how those values and norms are implemented in any given place depends on the place and depends on the point of development, politics, economics and the political economy of the media itself, who owns the thing. So if you look at what American journalists portray themselves as now – and not saying what they actually achieve – is to be completely fair and balanced.
Arab journalists may want to be fair, but they might not feel that their primary objective is to be balanced and objective. In this case they’re saying their primary mission is to drive political and social change, which tracks with what happened in journalism in the US and Europe 50-100 years ago. It’s natural at this point in the region’s political development.
Arab journalists are not necessarily an accurate representation of Arab populations on the whole. Do you think that aiming any policy at them might help or hinder the effect amongst the wider populace?
They’re the messenger. There are differences; they are more secular, but they aren’t that different from the public. In broad terms, what they’re saying tracks what you’re hearing from the public. Whether or not they’re directly in sync with the public, they’re still the only way to get to the public. So if you’re looking to communicate a message to the Arab people, it has to be through the media.
– Funding for the survey was provided by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, with support from the Howard R. Marsh Foundation and the Center for Middle East and North Africa Studies at the University of Michigan. The survey will be published in its entirety in the July issue of The International Journal of Press/Politics.
