12 Dec 2010

Al-Akhbar/Wikileaks: A postscript. The limits of journalism.

On the 1st of December, a Syrian worker was shot by Lebanese police dressed in civilian clothes in the early hours of the morning. The murder happened in Hamra, a residential and commercial district of Beirut that is popular with tourists and locals alike. The incident received little coverage in the media, with the exception of Al-Akhbar newspaper which published detailed coverage of the circumstances of the murder and placed it prominently on its digital version. Two things conspired to keep the story from receiving the attention that it deserved: the fact that the victim Abdel Nasser Ahmad was Syrian and Al-Akhbar’s publication of the leaked cables from several Arab countries which dominated the news.





In my previous post about Al-Akhbar and the leaked cables, I criticised the newspaper’s handling of the American documents. In my opinion Al-Akhbar failed to write the story and opted for a mass-dump of information Wikileaks-style instead. But I don’t want my critique to be read as a broad dismissal of Al-Akhbar, much like all Lebanese other media outlets it struggles with its own contradictions and the complexities of Lebanon. However, there’s no denying that it has nurtured a group of young journalists that have become excellent at doing the bread-and-butter work of journalism: the in-depth stories, the investigative angles, and giving voice to those who wouldn’t be heard otherwise.

Abdel Nasser’s story was a very good example of this much needed type of journalism in Lebanon. The reporter talked to the neighbours and a relative of the victim, uncovered the fact that the police were driving in an unmarked car and wearing civilian clothes and that they did not identify themselves before approaching the victim, who then fled and was then shot down. Abdel Nasser’s employer was very distressed with the murder, and many of the neighbours felt the same and they were full of praise for the youth whom they had known for years. I don’t wish to prejudge the outcome of the investigation, but suffice it to say that there are enough unanswered questions in this story to make it merit more media and public attention.

As it happened, the story will be treated as yet another unfortunate incident and will be quickly forgotten, showing how anesthetised Lebanese society has become to the abuses of power. Unmasking the excesses of the security services and the collusion of all political parties in preventing proper accountability should be a priority for journalists, instead of the tittle-tattle of the political classes and blunt propaganda. Al-Akhbar’s Ghassan Saoud for example carried out a series of investigations that exposed exactly how Michel El-Murr, veteran politician and father of the Deputy PM, maintains his political empire in Al-Maten area through a network of corruption, bribery and nepotism. To my eyes, that was a bigger scandal that anything his hapless son said to American diplomats, yet there was no political fallout.

The Lebanese media take their share of the blame for this failure: within every organisation, there is a clearly prescribed political limit that controls the coverage of news stories. Such limit is derived from the organisation’s position within the political spectrum, its ownership and financing, and, most dangerously, self-censorship that passes as ‘responsible reporting.’ While the first two aspects might be out of the control of journalists, the third is firmly theirs. Not long ago, Al-Akhbar’s Ibrahim Al-Amin bragged in an article about his newspaper’s ‘responsibility’ in not publishing all the information it has access to, in the interest of national stability. This is not an exception in the Lebanese press but pretty much the rule, an unforgivable abdication of journalistic responsibility if there’s any.

Many of us who disagree with Al-Akhbar’s politics respect its professionalism and the school of investigative journalism that it has nurtured in a clear departure from the complacency of Lebanese media. However, the important question is why does Al-Akhbar maintain a ceiling for this type of journalism at the expense of promoting the more politically explicit content? Why has Al-Akhbar’s role during the past few months allowed it to become that of relaying ‘regional’ wishes to the Lebanese political classes? We have the right to ask because we recognise the potential role that Al-Akhbar could have, and it’s a much needed one.

P.S. While I still maintain my support and solidarity with Al-Akhbar because of the hacking of its website, I am disgusted by how the Facebook support group has quickly become a mud-slinging platform, particularly insults that are aimed at other media outlets. For example, Elaph is described as a ‘Zionist publication’, always the surest way of silencing opponents. My sense is none of those supporters have learned anything about freedom of speech.

6 comments:

  1. On the 2nd of December, we were dining with a couple of friends in a semi-posh restaurant in Hamra, close to where that poor guy had been shot dead. The loud and bustling night stood in a remorseful contrast against the human tragedy that took place only the night before, and only a couple of blocks of away. As spoiled Hamra residents, we spoke about the shots we heard the night before, lamented this blatant injustice, and went on with our meal. The next day I post a status update on Facebook, expressing my rage how come the incident was still not reported. Hardly anyone noticed the post, or so I felt. A day or so later, brief and reserved news spread about in our media, but nothing equaling the subdued event. Being also someone who only exceptionally reads Al Akhbar, I had thought that was the end of it, until your post came about, which finally rendered me sufficiently heartened, and for a change, quite hopeful. For this, I’d have to commend you profoundly – first, that you rose above your reservations against al Akhbar, for the sake of freedom of speech (that is in your earlier post that preceded), and second, that you contributed to those very rare voices who are protesting the silence of Lebanese media against stealthy crimes of this sort.

    In addendum, I wish to elaborate on three things that pertain strongly to the core of this post - the most compelling of them has do with the lack of news coverage, and how I perceive it. You fear that Lebanese society has become “anesthetised” to the abuses of power, and I say this needs to be amended at the dimension of time (Lebanese society has always been so) and object analysis (to the abuses of power against minorities). Imagine if this Syrian were instead a Palestinian, Sudanese, South Asian, …etc, and then imagine if he had been a Shiite from Baalback, a Sunni from Tarik EL Jdeedeh, or Maronite from Ashrafieh. My concern can then be recast to say, how much I am worried Lebanese society can still get away, like it has always done, with overlooking crimes committed by those same people in power against people “with no voice”. I also wish to diverge but for the good cause of analogy, to reminisce about when the abuses of power happened at large scale, e.g., against (what used to be then, the defenseless) civilian population of the Palestinian refugee camps, back in the 50’s and 60’s. Of course, as it was back then, little or no media coverage took place, and such injustices only helped breed more injustices, such that the Palestinian victims themselves transformed into the beastly monsters, only a decade or so afterwards, roaming the streets of Beirut with their arms and Jeeps. And of course, there has never been a political fallout, as you call it, because no matter how the Lebanese fight against each other, they will all agree on how to treat the Palestinians, and uphold all cruel stances against “Al Tawteen”. Deriving from this analogy, we can continue that “the Lebanese media take their share of the blame for this failure…there is a clearly prescribed political limit that controls the coverage of news stories” that is resistant to human values. And as such, I wonder about this chicken and egg dilemma, if complacency of Lebanese media is a reflection of the complacency of ordinary Lebanese people, or whether it’s the other way round.

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  2. In my second observation I think we ought to address a bit of the operational aspects of Al Akhbar (or any other media outlet, for that matter), besides the issues you mentioned with regards to their political affiliation, who finances them, the extent to which they continue with the propaganda of insults, …etc. My guess is, Al Akhbar has been trying to inherit some of the “universally noble values” that the highest leadership in Hizballah has tried to project, in defiance of the opposing image of it being a sectarian party very much like all others. For one thing, you cannot possibly advocate the values of a Martyr -- supposedly a religiously devout individual -- whilst still practicing the inhumane, sectarian, and abusive attitudes that many Lebanese (and Arabs) have been doing. This has sowed the seeds of contradiction you see it all around. The cause is supposedly good. The recipe is bad. The ingredients are worse. You end up with a newspaper that investigates an unjust murder, but is silent with respect to many other abuses, and practices certain speech abuses itself – a newspaper which is giving “voice to those who wouldn’t be heard otherwise”, but certainly not because they are keen on fighting all forms of abuses taking place, within themselves and without, but because staying silent shall not go down well with the image they project as preachers of Virtue and denouncers of Vice. And this is by no means a venue to attack Al Akhbar. For one thing, other newspapers have not done half as good with regard to this poor man’s story. For another, they are all yet to learn to stand up to universal deceit. My conclusion on this point is that, I fear that the hope we derive upon realising someone like Al Akhbar has professionally investigated a certain low profile crime is only, despite inadvertently, empowering a trend of “selective good”, which those “young journalists” can grow into, dedicate their resources and talents in its direction, only for it to become a strong weapon in the hands of the dirty.

    Finally, on a post in which you’ve tried so hard to protest the injustices committed by journalism and the virtual world against crimes of the real one, I find it particularly alarming, the types of comments that this post has generated. As you were pushing to instill a sense of intellectual fault tolerance for the sake of more empathy, that no matter what we think of Al Akhbar and despite all the evil it was doing somewhere else, there was still some serious good coming out for the sake of poor victims like Abdel-Nasser Ahmad, many could only find it as an opportunity to criticise your tiny little corner where you commended presumably an intellectual opponent. Hardly anyone addressed the true point in question, and instead kept lingering around in tit-for-tat exchanges about Al Akhbar and what it does or does not do. Who stood up to point out the lack of coverage, to defy journalistic apathy? Who is worse I have started to wonder, those abusive people in power, or rather our intellectuals who come branded with fascism? Who is going to step down from their arrogant towers, and see a little bit of good in their worst foes, when this good is meant to tell the story of a tortured soul killed coldly whilst the affluent were dining in the nearby bars? Upholders of our democratic dreams – will they ever snap out of their static mode of thinking? They surely must know, for us to evolve, we have to keep learning, and then unlearning.
    If only there was less hormones and more compassion showing up in the FB replies…

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  3. I realise it took me two installments to actually be able to post my long reply...

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  4. (or three:)

    In my second observation I think we ought to address a bit of the operational aspects of Al Akhbar (or any other media outlet, for that matter), besides the issues you mentioned with regards to their political affiliation, who finances them, the extent to which they continue with the propaganda of insults, …etc. My guess is, Al Akhbar has been trying to inherit some of the “universally noble values” that the highest leadership in Hizballah has tried to project, in defiance of the opposing image of it being a sectarian party very much like all others. For one thing, you cannot possibly advocate the values of a Martyr -- supposedly a religiously devout individual -- whilst still practicing the inhumane, sectarian, and abusive attitudes that many Lebanese (and Arabs) have been doing. This has sowed the seeds of contradiction you see it all around. The cause is supposedly good. The recipe is bad. The ingredients are worse. You end up with a newspaper that investigates an unjust murder, but is silent with respect to many other abuses, and practices certain speech abuses itself – a newspaper which is giving “voice to those who wouldn’t be heard otherwise”, but certainly not because they are keen on fighting all forms of abuses taking place, within themselves and without, but because staying silent shall not go down well with the image they project as preachers of Virtue and denouncers of Vice. And this is by no means a venue to attack Al Akhbar. For one thing, other newspapers have not done half as good with regard to this poor man’s story. For another, they are all yet to learn to stand up to universal deceit. My conclusion on this point is that, I fear that the hope we derive upon realising someone like Al Akhbar has professionally investigated a certain low profile crime is only, despite inadvertently, empowering a trend of “selective good”, which those “young journalists” can grow into, dedicate their resources and talents in its direction, only for it to become a strong weapon in the hands of the dirty.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Finally, on a post in which you’ve tried so hard to protest the injustices committed by journalism and the virtual world against crimes of the real one, I find it particularly alarming, the types of comments that this post has generated. As you were pushing to instill a sense of intellectual fault tolerance for the sake of more empathy, that no matter what we think of Al Akhbar and despite all the evil it was doing somewhere else, there was still some serious good coming out for the sake of poor victims like Abdel-Nasser Ahmad, many could only find it as an opportunity to criticise your tiny little corner where you commended presumably an intellectual opponent. Hardly anyone addressed the true point in question, and instead kept lingering around in tit-for-tat exchanges about Al Akhbar and what it does or does not do. Who stood up to point out the lack of coverage, to defy journalistic apathy? Who is worse I have started to wonder, those abusive people in power, or rather our intellectuals who come branded with fascism? Who is going to step down from their arrogant towers, and see a little bit of good in their worst foes, when this good is meant to tell the story of a tortured soul killed coldly whilst the affluent were dining in the nearby bars? Upholders of our democratic dreams – will they ever snap out of their static mode of thinking? They surely must know, for us to evolve, we have to keep learning, and then unlearning.
    If only there was less hormones and more compassion showing up in the FB replies…

    ReplyDelete
  6. Fatima, thank you so much for your comments, as always they're encouraging and thought-provoking. I'm trying to understand our situation by writing these pieces more than give answers, but I am always driven by optimism and the idea that with the help of other people we can come closer to real answers.

    I think sometimes people say things in the heat of the moment, but I wouldn't take it against anyone. Part of the problem is we're always forced to take sides even though those sides don't represent us fully, so we end up alienating people that we might actually agree with otherwise. It's no reason to despair though, we can still debate and discuss and find the common grounds, and it's better to have a loud and heated honest debate than to have a polite hypocritical one. I'm not apologising for anyone, but there's more to everyone of them than the comments they've made.

    The trick in all of this is to understand the contradictions of our situation, nobody is immune to that. And while there's lots of scope for pessimism, there's also lots of hope because there's surprising dynamism around us. I think trying to find those exceptions gives us hope that our situation will improve. Perhaps that's why I didn't write that we were always anesthetised, because there were moments in which the Lebanese surprised themselves.

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Karl reMarks is a blog about Middle East politics and culture with a healthy dose of satire.

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