Posted on 08/10/2004 12:30:09 AM PDT by HAL9000
CAIRO (AP)--Al-Arabiya TV chief Abdulrahman al-Rashed knows Iraqi militants use his station to get their message to the masses and understands that each time he airs a video of a kidnapped foreigner, terrorists are encouraged to grab others.
At rival station Al-Jazeera, chief editor Ahmed al-Sheikh says he faces the same agonizing dilemma every time militants deliver yet another tape bearing a shivering hostage or a deadly threat.
But both men, like those at many news organizations, say that though it is becoming increasingly difficult to decide whether to report developments like videotapes of hooded gunmen surrounding captive truck drivers, they can't shirk their responsibilities to cover the news and chase advertising ratings.
It is a reality on which militants in Iraq, and recently some militants in the Palestinian territories, are capitalizing.
"I am convinced the airing of (militant group) tapes is encouraging more kidnapping, issuing of demands and other examples of this kind," says al-Rashed, general manager of Dubai-based Al-Arabiya, which along with Al-Jazeera TV has been receiving and broadcasting the bulk of the militants' tapes.
"We can see it on the ground, but this is the nature of the media and there is little that we can do," he told The Associated Press.
Al-Rashed says his Saudi-owned station checks each tape sent by militants for authenticity and the most relevant, newsworthy segments to consider airing. Like many tapes that end up in his station's hands, many are rhetorical rants from militants providing no hard news. Without images of a kidnapped foreigner, such videos are ignored, he says.
But when the tape includes a hostage, beheading or any other "newsworthy" event, parts are aired, even if it might encourage more of the same.
"There is only one condition for me to stop airing all these videotapes, which is that all TV stations in the region agree not to show them," al-Rashed says. " If they agree, I will also."
"But it is difficult for me to have an empty screen and have people find the news on another station, because ratings play a major role, even though I believe that part of the frequency in the kidnappings has to do with the media publicity these groups are getting."
Al-Sheikh from Al-Jazeera says there was little his station can do but report all the developments in the war in Iraq. The kidnappings are "one of the repercussions of the present state of lawlessness in the country," al-Sheikh told the AP.
Al-Jazeera's coverage in Iraq landed it in hot water over the weekend. Police ordered its employees out of their Baghdad newsroom after the Iraqi government closed its office for 30 days, accusing Al-Jazeera of inciting violence.
"They have been showing a lot of crimes and criminals on TV, and they transfer a bad picture about Iraq and about Iraqis and encourage criminals to increase their activities," Iraqi Interior Minister Falah al-Naqib said. "We want to protect our people."
Al-Jazeera officials said the closure violated press freedoms.
More than 70 foreigners, mainly truck drivers but also diplomats from Iran and Egypt and U.S. citizens, have been kidnapped in Iraq since coalition forces invaded last year. Many have been taped by cameramen while surrounded by armed men issuing demands interspersed with Koranic verses. In at least three cases, including that of American businessman Nicholas Berg, their beheadings have been recorded with excerpts of the videos being aired around the world.
The beheading of American engineer Paul Johnson Jr. in Saudi Arabia in June was also aired on TV, while Palestinian militants on July 30 briefly held three church volunteers, including an American, hostage in the West Bank city of Nablus before freeing them once the kidnappers were promised payoffs.
Mamoun Fandy, senior fellow at the Washington-based James Baker Institute for Public Policy, accused Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya of "becoming cheer leaders for terrorism," claiming they air videos and faxed statements from militants without "verifying" their sources.
"This is not journalism, this is advertising for terrorism. They (the militants) are killing for air time, not for jihad (holy war), they are killing to appear on Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya," says Fandy, who writes on Middle Eastern affairs.
Bob Steele, a journalism values scholar at the Florida-based Poynter Institute for Media Studies, says there was no way to prove media organizations were feeding the increased kidnappings, but added that editors and journalists must take care with what they consider airing.
"No doubt militant groups are using the media for certain forms of negotiation, but in times like these I believe that people in the United States and around the world are best served when they have more information rather than less," Steele says.
Rami Khouri, executive editor of Lebanon's English-language Daily Star newspaper, cautioned against blaming the media, saying TV stations and news organizations like his would be doing a "disservice" by ignoring the tapes.
I think that's a good reason to disallow links to hostage snuff films.
Ah yes. The agony of the decision. Should they run it 40 times an hour or only 20? Should they caption it "Bush's Fault" or "America's Fault"? or the more nuanced "Bush Is A Puppet of The Zionist Conspiracy"?
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