A Journalist's Weblog:
Monitoring Suppression of Press Freedoms Around the World
Thursday, September 11, 2003
Spanish Officials have arrested an Al-Jazeera journalist with allegded ties to Al Qaeda. This is not just a case of suppression of the media, but another instance of the disricimination against non-Western media.
During the war in Iraq, Al Jazeera was constantly criticised for showing footage the Western media deemed exploitative, unnecessary or too gory. When the Arab media broadcast images of captured US soldiers, the Western media and the Bush administration were quick to jump up and cry foul, citing contraventions of the Geneva Convention's policies against treatment of POWs. No mention was made of the fact that the Western media were just as guilty of such depictions.
The Western media suppresses what goes against its own values and world views - and yet calls Third World and its media, undemocratic, restrictive and intolerant. But look the current state of affairs in America and even Australia, and we see that we've established laws and policies just as undemocratic, restrictive and intolerant.
The media, however has not pointed this out. They accuse Arab media for insensitivity and exploitativeness, but as Geneive Adbo writes, it is often American media who lack cultural sensitivities.
Her article, Reporting to a Western Audience About the Islamic World, details the lack of respect and arrogance of Western reporting.
Perhaps the media should be more reflexive and look to their own ways of reporting before criticising the reporting of media from "the other side". In any case, there shouldn't be a side. That's the whole point of journalism
