Iraq’s post-Saddam media
By Hiwa Osman Posted Oct 1 2004
But this media boom did not translate into quality media options for the eager, but yet naïve, Iraqi news consumers. Iraqi authorities, inexperienced in dealing with free media, acted as though the country was threatened by irresponsible news outlets that spread fabricated stories that fuelled the ongoing violence.
With serious investors holding back, most newspapers were – and still are – published by the myriad political parties or operatives that sprang up like mushrooms in post-Saddam Iraq. Radio and televisions have been taken over by various political parties that began broadcasting.The Bathist Party once viewed the media as its political mouthpiece. Today, in a state of Bathist hangover, the pendulum has swung to the other extreme. To many Iraqi journalists, freedom of expression means they can say whatever they want, without regard for the truth, and they do.
Working Iraqi journalists had for years been nothing more than conveyers of party propaganda. They were used to being spoon-fed news from the Ministry of Information and complained loudly when it was dissolved.
Today, reporters readily confess that their workday consists of sitting at a desk listening to the radio. When they hear news that catches their interest, they write a story about what they think about it. Few “news” articles separate fact from opinion.
Journalists, who have no culture of responsible reporting, pick up the rumors and conspiracy theories and print them as fact. Newspapers thus trigger a “multiplier effect” for the worst sort of misinformation dissemination.
And the Iraqi public, used to ignoring official news sources in favor of street rumors, conspiracy theories and innuendo is ill-equipped to sort fact from fantasy.
On the broadcast side, the complete failure of the Iraq Media Network (now Iraqiya) to produce decent – much less quality – programming, resulted in a news vacuum filled by the Arab satellite channels Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya.
Most Iraqis, who tend to get their news from television, quickly recognized the shrill anti-Americanism and Sunni Arab nationalist agenda of these stations – which may reflect the views of their Sunni Arab backers and audience, but not the Iraqi public. The majority Arab population of Iraq is Shia, while the majority of the Sunni population is Kurdish. Few Iraqis endorsed the stations’ thinly veiled support of Saddam Hussein’s regime and the insurgency, but continue to watch for a dearth of options.
The Iraqi authorities began to see Iraq’s national security threatened by the stations’ airing of videotapes that showed Islamic insurgents calling for people to kill members of the Governing Council. In the absence of any regulatory framework, the authorities feared the stations were inciting violence during volatile times and ordered the shutdown of Al-Jazaeera and Al-Arabyia for short periods of time.
Authorities also padlocked Al-Mustaqila newspaper for publishing an article titled “Death to all spies and those who cooperate with the U.S.; killing them is religious duty.”
Out of Baghdad’s perhaps 150 news publications the only other paper closed was Muqtada al-Sadr’s Al-Hawza for reporting – falsely – that a suicide bombing in the town of Iskandariyah, south of Baghdad, that killed 53 people was a rocket “fired by an [American] Apache helicopter and not a car bomb.”
Many people might agree that even in advanced democracies newspapers would not be allowed to publish known falsehoods or incite violence. But few would agree with the fact that a state authority, rather than an independent media regulator, should force the closings. No such independent authority existed in Iraq, and it still doesn’t.
The Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) tried to develop media oversight independent of the government. Order 65, decreed by the U.S. administrator, L. Paul Bremer, provided for the establishment of the Iraqi Communication and Media Commission, a body that was charged with regulating the media through broadcasting licenses and developing a journalistic code of ethics. As of this spring, it was not yet operating.
Current government officials view Order 65 with some suspicion. Some point out that they were not involved in the drafting process between the Governing Council and the CPA. Furthermore, an independent regulatory body is seen by some as a ready-made model imported from the West that may not apply to the violent post-war situation in Iraq.
Enter the Iraqi Interim Government, which assumed power June 28.
When the Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi assumed power, he reopened Al-Hawza. At the same time, he closed Al-Jazeera’s Baghdad office.
Many non-Iraqis did not know what to make of these seemingly contradicting decisions.
But the issue was clearer for the Iraqi people, many of whom agree with the former government that Al-Jazeera is an external threat serving the interests of those who seek to destabilize Iraq. On the other hand, they see Al-Hawza as the voice of a more radical trend in Iraqi society that has the right to be heard.
The transition to free and independent media is never an easy task. And it is all the more difficult in Iraq's constantly shifting political landscape and against the backdrop of a cycle of violence with no end of sight.
And while mush remains to be done on the legislative level, much more needs to be done to improve the media savvy of the Iraqi news consumer.