13 - 19 December 2001
Issue No.564
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 13 - 19 December 2001 Issue No.564 |
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Current issue | Previous issue | Site map | ||
It's highly sophisticated, but is it truly free? As the mainstream US media continues to beat the drums of America's "war on terror" Fatemah Farag investigates the implications for press freedom and finds islands of dissent
Swimming upstream
"It was the speech that clung to the ears, the link that tingled in the blood; U.S.A."
Illustration by Gamil Shafiq
-- John Dos Passos, U.S.A.
What do we make of the "U. S. of A."? What speech is it that clings to our ears and moulds our perceptions? Is it that of the six-pack Joe, Hollywood, apple pie and the "American Dream," all gift-wrapped in red, white and blue? Or is it something else -- something much more fragile and complex; heart-warming, yet heart-rending at the same time, like the men and women drawn up in John Dos Passos's 1948 novel U.S.A.
Ironically, the mainstream media in the US has not only succeeded in creating a monolithic image of what Arabs are -- to put it in bottom-line terms: crazed mullahs leading American-hating, bloodthirsty mobs; it has also succeeded in projecting a subversive, equally monolithic image of what Americans are -- arrogant, racist and brutal imperial masters who hate anything un-American. These images are reinforced by both the actions and policies of the American establishment and our very own media in the Arab world.
It is the frustrating cycle of misperception. In an outburst in his daily column for Mediachannel.org, a non-profit alternative news source with 840 global partners offering "critical takes" on media performance, Danny Schechter wrote: "Hello Arab World: not all Jews are Zionists or supportive of Ariel Sharon and his gang of ministers. Why don't you know that? I know why. No one ever tells you. Not your media and not ours. Dissenting views, and peace perspectives are filtered out, marginalized and silenced. That is why the conflict in the world is becoming jihad vs. jihad, Bush vs. bin Laden."
And why can't we hear the voices of dissent coming from within the US? Rory O'Connor, president and CEO of Globalvision, New Media, Inc., which produces Mediachannel.org, told Al-Ahram Weekly, "The United States is a large, disparate country with many people and many viewpoints ... [however] finding them and amplifying them can be exceedingly difficult. Thus, the problem with the US media system is not that there isn't room for many viewpoints, opinions and conflicting content; it lies more in the fact that mainstream distribution is tightly controlled by a few, huge, centralised corporations."
And while we constantly focus on how we as Arabs bear the brunt of the current state of media affairs, we never take time to heed the fact that many Americans suffer equally. "What is surprising and maddening about trying to express alternative viewpoints in the United States is that there are so few places to put them," complained Wallace Shawn, writer, actor and director, in an interview with the Weekly. "In New York City, this huge cosmopolitan meeting-place where I live, I hear an astonishing variety of opinions expressed every day by individuals, but there are only three newspapers, each one of them offering in one style or another the consensus attitude [in this case pro-war/establishment]. So each of the individuals I meet feels isolated, as if he alone has an alternative view, when in fact there are enormous numbers of people who do, but their views are not reflected in the newspapers, much less on television."
Last February, and on the occasion of the inauguration of Mediachannel.org, no less than veteran anchor Walter Chronkite noted: "I have been increasingly critical of the direction that journalism has taken of late, and of the impact on democratic discourse and principles ... I am deeply concerned about the merger mania that has swept our industry, diluting standards, dumbing down the news and making the bottom line sometimes seem like the only line. It isn't and shouldn't be."
Hence the importance of the development and growth of alternative media sources within the US -- generally self-defined as news and information sources that set themselves apart from the mainstream by being politically opposed to the conservative, corporate agenda, and by operating without corporate conglomerate dollars. "While only seven companies control most of the major media outlets, there are many local outlets, magazines of opinion, ethnic news sources, independent publications and a growing proliferation of independent Web sites offering diverse perspectives," Danny Schechter, executive editor of Mediachannel.org, told the Weekly.
The alternative print category includes magazines (e.g., Mother Jones, In These Times, The Nation, and The Progressive) and news weeklies like the Village Voice, Boston Phoenix and LA Weekly. Many of these have online components. In radio there's National Public Radio (NPR) -- although even this is now considered by many devotees to have become more mainstream, as it is now largely funded by mega- corporations. Other radio stations include the Pacifica Network (five stations) and "micro-radio" -- small, local radio stations that often have no official licence. The television category is the weakest, with only the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) counting for much in the way of viewership -- and again, like NPR, it is hardly alternative anymore because of corporate underwriting.
As for the Internet, Tate Hausman, managing editor for AlterNet, drew the map for the Weekly as follows: "There are literally hundreds of very small, online magazines with small readerships -- lipmagazine.org, yellowtimes.org, ironminds.com to name a few. These operate with almost no budget and have only online presence." Hausman set larger, more influential online magazines, like Salon.com and AlterNet.org, in a category of their own, saying that these have higher readership -- AlterNet has between 15,000 and 20,000 individual visits a day. These sites also post pieces by their readers and link to articles from other sites. Wrapping up, Hausman adds: "Then there are the independent media centres such as indymedia.org, a semi-successful experiment in unmediated media. Anyone who wants to publish a story or photo on the site can do so, without any editing or journalistic standards."
A cursory search on the Internet of these and other outlets transports the visitor to another world: articles by Noam Chomsky, Alexander Cockburn, Arundhati Roy, Robert Fisk, Tareq Ali, as well as lesser known figures like Nigerian activist Oranto Douglas and Palestinian poet Soheir Hammad, to name only a few, are readily found. Their absence is conspicuous in the mainstream media. These articles are provocative and cheeky -- not very "newsworthy" in mainstream terms, as they often deal with the fate of developing nations in the "new world order" and offer a variety of anti-war takes. The slogans of alternative outlets are worth something in themselves: CounterPunch "Tells the facts and names the names." My personal favourite is DemocracyNow Radio: "Resistance Radio: the exception to the rulers."
Hausman described the alternative media world of the US to the Weekly as "very complex and robust, but limited in reach." Of course, money -- or the lack thereof, to be more precise -- is a major constraining factor. "You know about the New York Times and CNN because they have gigantic budgets and advertising revenues. No alternative media sources can ever match their budgets," Hausman said.
But not everything can be measured in terms of quantity, and as Hausman himself pointed out, "Our audience is much more engaged in civic life than the average media consumer, and so we have an influence far beyond our relatively small audience."
Of all the mediums of alternative news, the Internet is the most easily accessible and, therefore, the medium growing at the fastest rate, especially since 11 September. AlterNet, for example, has seen its readership grow by 300 per cent since 11 September, Hausman said. "Many more people are seeking out alternative information, and the Internet is the easiest place to go for that information."
But what kind of foreign coverage can the alternative media provide? Hausman points out that the reason US coverage is weak is because "covering international affairs well is a very expensive endeavour. The mainstream papers don't do it because it isn't cost effective, and the alternative media simply can't do it because they don't have the resources." He went on to add, "What alternative media can do -- especially online media -- is collaborate more with media outlets in your region of the world [the Middle East]."
And so AlterNet is working with foreign journalists and media outlets to re-present news and opinions from abroad. Globalvision has launched the New Globalvision News Network, which includes perspectives from outside of the US. Globalvision's O'Connor argues, however, that while the Internet is part of an answer it is not "the answer." He said that issues that pertain to other media, particularly the "branding" by huge communication conglomerates and their "choke- hold" on mainstream distribution, "are as important, if not more so, in the Internet space as they are anywhere else."
"For example, our company has two Web sites -- Mediachannel.org and gvnews.net -- where we offer international voices and views not in the 'mainstream' of American media," O'Connor said. "But supporting these sites and getting people to know of their existence and how they can be accessed is a major and ongoing challenge to us, as with all independent media sources in the US."
And while the constraints on freedom of expression continue to be tightened within a general environment of fundamentalist and crude patriotism, it is hoped that this, "if anything, will give us more articles to write, as we remain watchdogs over government abuses," says Hausman. "Unfortunately, it often takes a crisis like 11 September and the war in Afghanistan to make people appreciate and seek out alternative information. But along with the restrictive environment, the counter-culture of independent news and opinions will continue to grow. In fact, it may turn out that the more restrictive the government and mainstream media become, the more effective and important the alternative media will become," he suggested.
Alternative media may be one of the few areas that have the potential to subvert the myths constructed by "the establishment" and help create a new awareness of what USA also stands for. In the words of Dos Passos: "Mostly, U.S.A. is the speech of the people." As it should be.
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