The Guessing Game in Egypt

The Egyptian Revolution was and still is a remarkable story. Thousands of people taking to the streets and squares of an autocratic country, standing up for the rights and freedoms we take for granted in Canada. For close to three weeks we watched and listened to world shaking events live as they happened half a world away. Once again the power of the people was too much for a dictator to deal with. We have seen similar scenarios play out in places like Berlin and Manila. We have also seen it go the other way most recently in Teheran and decades ago in Beijing. I suppose it is the failures in China and Iran that make the story so poignant in Egypt. It is the possibility of brutality, ugliness and doom that make one turn on Al Jazeera or CNN to witness what’s going on, all the while hoping and praying for the success of the brave folks who are standing up to their undemocratic leaders.

While musing on the events in Cairo it is impossible for me to not also think about the successes and failures of the journalistic coverage of those events. It was truly the best of times and the worst of times for 24 hour news stations.

Trying to cover and understand live events, especially massive events like a revolution is a daunting task for even the best minds in journalism. In Egypt it was the possibilities not the actual events that were so riveting. Let’s face it, except for the day when the protesters were attacked by Mubarak supporters on camels, there was not much to see. Tens of thousands of people milling about, sleeping, arguing and most of all, waiting don’t make for great pictures. What kept the story going was the speculation. What would the Mubarak government do? Would Mubarak call in the troops to force an end to the protest? Would Mubarak attempt to negotiate a peaceful end? Would he finally have to quit the leadership as the crowds were demanding?

It was truly exciting because we did not know how it would end. And this is where the networks failed. To be fair, I don’t know if it was possible to succeed, but for eighteen days and more viewers were bombarded not with facts but with speculation: one former ambassador to Egypt speculating that Mubarak could not be forced out; an academic who guessed that Mubarak had no choice but to leave. On and on the experts droned for hours that morphed into days and weeks. The poor viewer was left with a cornucopia of opinion. It’s too bad no two experts seemed to agree on anything. The facts were few and far between. The details did not add up to any real understanding of what was going to happen in the end. It was closer to sports play-by-play than it was to journalism. Between periods or innings we went back to the experts, the former players and managers to assess what they were seeing. Only when there is little or no action, what the heck were they basing their comments on?

The day before Mubarak left we were told that he was going to make a statement. All the so-called experts announced that he was quitting. Wrong again. Mubarak said he was staying until the next election and asked the people to go home and allow the economy to get back to normal. So that was it. The insiders and pundits quickly offered that the revolution was almost over. Mubarak would stay. He would change his style of government but he was not going anywhere. That speculation was still going strong when Mubarak abruptly left for a resort in the Sinai and his vice president, Suleiman, was left to announce that Mubarak had finally quit. Jubilation ensued, not just in Egypt, but all around the world. The experts were back and proclaiming the revolution over and won by the people of Egypt.

I hope they are right this time, but let’s face it, while Mubarak is gone, it is the army that has taken power. The generals are saying all the right things…new constitution, free elections in six months or more, but hey, from here it looks like another military dictatorship, at least for now.

In the last few days we have begun to read and hear about the root causes of the revolt. Soaring food prices and massive unemployment emboldened the people of Egypt. As Bob Dylan said, “When you ain’t got nothin’, you have nothin’ to lose.” There are even some questions beginning to trickle out about whether the military will readily give up power. Good. But where were these questions and background while the story was happening? If you believed CNN and Fox it was only the successful revolt in Tunisia that led to the Egyptian uprising. Al Jazeera English was better, but they too got caught up in the speculation to the sometimes exclusion of the facts.

24 Hour news once again had a great story to tell. As far as pictures and images were concerned, they did a great job, especially considering the pressure they were under from the Egyptian authorities. But as far as concrete information was concerned, all news was a wasteland of speculation, guesswork and boring interviews with out-of-touch experts that were sitting hundreds or thousands of miles from the action. Like I said earlier, I don’t know if there was any way around this problem. The longer a story lasts the more difficult it is to find new angles and new talkers, but I do know that some context about conditions in Egypt that allowed for all those people to spend 18 or more days in Tahrir Square would have helped me to understand the story.

Oh, and once again as a major story breaks, CBC NN and CTV News Channel become almost completely irrelevant. I have asked this question many times before and I ask it again: why would anyone who has access to Al Jazeera English or CNN watch a major international event on CBC NN or CTV News Channel? Unless Stephen Harper is in trouble, or Bev Oda is fudging the truth again, why would I watch a Canadian all news channel at all? It’s not the fault of the CBC and CTV news staffs that they are badly outgunned by the big international networks. But it is a fact and calls into question the ability and usefulness of Canadian all news networks unless Bell Media and the government of Canada are willing to properly fund such enterprises.

Filed under: Media Commentary, Political Commentary, Al Jazeera, Bell Media, CBC NN, CNN, CTV News Channel

Disaster! What Disaster?

For the first time I can remember, I have read more comment about the lack of coverage of an event than I have had the opportunity to read and see coverage of the event itself. While not completely ignoring the devastating floods and human disaster in Pakistan, the western press has certainly treated the massive loss of life and the humanitarian crisis with little more than a figurative yawn. Where are the teams of CNN journalists? Where’s the CBC and CTV? Where is ABC, NBC and CBS? I hear Al Jazeera English is all over the story though.

As almost all the commentators have done, it is reasonable to compare the coverage of the Haiti earthquake and the events of the past two weeks in Pakistan. In Haiti it took but a few hours before news teams were on their way. They took every imaginable route to the disaster defying the difficulties of an airport that was out of commission and a port that was in ruins. Most came in overland from the Dominican Republic but many chartered their own boats and even helicopters to land in Haiti.
Beyond the news media, rock stars organized fund raisers, everyone, it seemed, had a plan to come to the aid of the Haitian people. The world mobilized and the money poured in.

Now let’s look at Pakistan. Yes, a flood is not as dramatic as an earthquake. Sure the numbers of immediate deaths are small in comparison to Haiti, 300,000 to 14,000. But in Pakistan there are more than triple the number of homeless and if help is not forthcoming disease and starvation may drive the numbers of dead up to Haitian levels or worse.

I’ve heard of no concerts for Pakistan. Anderson Cooper hasn’t moved to Pakistan for a few months to cover the events and rail against the lack of aid. After a few days the news from Pakistan made few front pages of daily newspapers.

The commentators are asking why the lack of interest by the media and in turn, the public. They all give their reasons. Most prominent among the reasons I’ve read has been the idea that there is a disaster fatigue. In other words, we are tired of disasters. Haiti took it out of us. It’s hard to get up for a new human crisis just a few months after we mobilized for Haiti.

Another reason I have read a lot about is that it is summer. TV viewership is down, many correspondents are on vacation, staffs are stretched and frankly why waste the big bucks it would take to do a proper job on the relatively small vacation time audiences.

While I believe there is some truth in both of the above excuses, I do not believe either one comes close to the two real reasons the world press are avoiding Pakistan.

The first “real” reason is that in these days of austerity and budget cutting no network has the money to go all out on Haiti and Pakistan. Haiti is already done and so is the budget. Maybe if the flooding had taken place after Labor Day, the traditional start of the new TV season for newscasters, the news bosses might have been more willing to part with a few bucks and few more resources to cover the flood and its aftermath. Let’s face it, at this time of year you can hardly get Peter Mansbridge and Lloyd Robertson to host their own newscasts, let alone fly off to Islamabad and beyond.

In my opinion the networks and newspapers are breaking one of the golden rules of news coverage. When I got my first executive producing job at CTV, my brilliant boss, Don Cameron, gave me this advice: never spend money you don’t have to spend and NEVER let money get in the way of covering an important news story. I wish Don were alive today because I know if he was, CTV at least, would be all over the Pakistan flood.

Now to the second “real” and least discussed reason for the lack of coverage of Pakistan. Nobody wants to come out and say it because it sounds more than a little racist or anti-Muslim, but come on folks, don’t you think that news people in the west look at Pakistan and see a whole lot of people, many even in the army and the government, who are all too willing to help Bin Laden and the Taliban to kill our boys and girls in Afghanistan. Don’t you think news people see many of the people of Pakistan as fundamentalist Muslims who want to destroy Christianity and kill Jews. Don’t we see Pakistani’s as a source of terrorism in the west and worse a possible source of nuclear terrorism. I haven’t even mentioned the treatment of women or the attacks in Mumbai. Add to all these things the very real fear that if they go, journalists I mean, to western Pakistan there is always the possibility of being kidnapped and beheaded. All of this has to add up to a very natural reluctance to cover any events in Pakistan, let alone the floods.

Logically I can sit here at my very safe desk in Toronto and say yes, all of that may be true, but the millions of poor Pakistani’s who are suffering are human beings, they are victims of a terrible disaster and they are being further victimized by prejudice and the possible fact their religious and political leaders may have committed what we in the west consider crimes against us. It’s not fair, but unless we confront the truths behind our actions we will not be able to do it better next time.

I believe it is really important in the aftermath of the Pakistani floods to take a good look at how the western media reacted to the floods, the homelessness, the starvation and the disease. We must ask ourselves why we gave these event short shrift and we must examine the kind of response that we feel was needed. In the end, journalists may say it was too expensive or too dangerous. They may even say it wasn’t worth the money to report on people that westerners show little compassion for. I would argue the other side. But let’s have the argument so that we know how to react next time instead of letting the story pass by default.

I highly recommend that you all go to the J-Source website, http://www.j-source.ca and read a most thoughtful piece by Claude Adams. Claude is an excellent journalist who has covered these sorts of events all over the world. He speaks from experience and he makes more sense than any other commentary I have read on the subject.

Filed under: Media Commentary, Political Commentary, ABC, Al Jazeera, Anderson Cooper, CBC, CBS, Claude Adams, CNN, CTV, NBC

Time for Al Jazeera

Many years ago when I was producing the news at CBC Toronto I found myself in a typically ferocious friendly argument with one of the smartest people on my staff, a man who was a close friend then and remains so to this day. He was very upset that I was planning to have Ernst Zundel on one of our programs. Zundel, of course, was one of Canada’s leading Nazi supporters and Holocaust deniers. My friend argued that we were giving a platform to a dangerous point of view and that hate speech had no place on Canadian airwaves.

I believed that exposing Zundel’s remarks to the public would do more to shine a light on his inane points of view and stupidity that this man represented than censoring him. I pointed out that the Nazi’s were banned in Germany in the ‘20s and look how well that worked out.

The irony was that my friend is Christian and I am Jewish, although to be fair, neither of us is particularly religious.

I tell this story because of the fight over whether Al Jazeera should be allowed to enter Canada as a cable and satellite station. I cannot say I know much more than what I have read about the network. I have heard groups argue for and against Al Jazeera’s availability to Canadians.

Those against are quick to point out the anti-Semitism and anti-Israeli rhetoric they say is a hallmark of Al Jazeera in Arabic. I have never heard the same said about their English language service. I suspect it is pro-Palestinian, pro-Arab and pro-Muslim, but we allow U.S. news into Canada and I don’t believe Fox news is any less slanted and unfair, probably it’s a lot more biased.

Those for Al Jazeera are quick to point out that Tony Burman, the former head of CBC News, a Canadian, is running Al Jazeera, so how bad can it be. Tony was responsible for some pretty bad newscasts in Canada, but that’s not what the proponents are saying. They believe a Canadian at the helm of Al Jazeera proves it is not unfair, anti-West and irresponsible. Having seen some Middle East coverage from CBC under Tony Burman it’s not an argument I would be comfortable with. In any case who cares? Since when is balance and fairness in news coverage a requirement for getting on the air in Canada? I have already mentioned Fox, but the coverage of the Iraq War by ABC, NBC and CBS was egregious. It could have been written and reported by the State Department and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Coverage of the Separatist Movement in Canada was no better, at least on the English side, and the War in Afghanistan seems a-ok with our three top television networks, see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil. You know them better as CBC, CTV and Global.

What most folks are really saying is that you can be unfair and unbalanced so long as we agree with the side you are taking.

All these years after my Ernst Zundel debate I have not changed my mind. I think the best way for Canadians to understand where other people are coming from is to hear their points of view. I don’t have to agree. But I certainly cannot agree or disagree if I don’t know what they are saying. The Arab viewpoint is sorely lacking in Canada. All we get is coverage of the coverage. I would like to see what Al Jazeera is saying about Obama, Israel, terrorism, the troubles in Pakistan and perhaps even Canadian Middle East policy under Stephen Harper.

Most of the rest of the world already gets Al Jazeera either in English or Arabic. Heck, Israeli’s can watch the network. What are we afraid of? Are our beliefs and opinions that fragile? If Al Jazeera were to say that Jews control U.S. foreign policy and the International Monetary Fund, as I have read they have reported in Arabic, will well educated Canadians automatically believe it? I think not. Some bigots may use Al Jazeera to bolster their beliefs but they will find their path to bigotry whether Al Jazeera is available or not.

I am told that, in fact, quite a few Jewish journalists work for the English Al Jazeera network. I don’t know whether this is true. I do know that many Israeli politicians have gone on Al Jazeera to try to get their viewpoints across to Arabs.

Let’s grow up as a country and live up to the standards we say we believe in. Freedom of speech is always a good thing. Knowledge is always a good thing. Understanding your enemies as well as your friends is always important. A diversity of opinion in a land as diverse as our own should be a given. If Al Jazeera screws up there will be plenty of Canadian voices willing to point out their failures. If they break our libel or hate laws we can prosecute them. But muzzling them hurts us more than it hurts them, it’s time, bring on Al Jazeera.

Filed under: Media Commentary, Political Commentary, Al Jazeera, CBC News, CTV, Ernst Zundel, Fox News, Global News, Iraq, Israel, Middle East, Palestine, Tony Burman