It’s happening in the Arab media

The winds of difference have blown across the countries of the Arabian Gulf and the Arab viewers are now sitting in front of their televisions ready to accept anything the Arab media outlets say without feeling “shocked”. This is the case even if the television presenter presents contradictory events as facts that occurred at the same time.

Arab television stations spend hours fighting their political opponents, while reporting the news has become a secondary matter in the balances of media priorities. The enemy in this case may be a fellow Arab country that has stood by us in economic and political hardships.

Playing on contradictions, while insisting on explaining terms and phrases in a manner distant from their conventional meanings, is a style used by experienced analysts who will stress the difference between an economic boycott and the blockade that the Gulf countries imposed against Qatar. They also do not forget to point out that the target is political and that the Qatari people themselves are not targeted in the withholding of goods from them. A country’s minister will not deny a new story, but will pass it over to the presenter to seem wiser in a manner reminiscent of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad’s careful selection of terms, choosing those that are lighter on the ears of the listeners, especially if the news is directed abroad.

The media of dictatorships in Syria, Libya and Egypt are not different to what channels claiming to be professional are doing.  They have changed from reporting welcoming ceremonies, receptions and the signing of agreements with “allies” to pursuing the news of the “enemy” that possesses its dangerous secrets, has kept it for decades, and has decided that now is the time to disclose them. It seems that the interest in craft is great in news stations such as Al-Arabiya and Sky News. It made sure to erase all videos that praised the Gulf partnership with Qatar from their websites. The greetings from Saudi and Emirati officials disappeared and those in charge of the aforementioned television stations did not forget any video praising the “enemy”. The two channels’ websites shift between old neutrality and new hostility, unlike other simpler channels, such as Saudi’s Al-Ekhbariya News and the likes.

With Al-Ekhbariya, everything remained the same, perhaps due to the staff’s laziness or their public state of austerity preventing the staff from doing over time, for which they will not be rewarded. Or perhaps it is because those in charge of these television stations’ sites are certain that no one is watching, as their channel has a below average viewership and engagement. The former stations managed to erase all the videos showing any amicable or friendly event under Qatari sponsorship. For example, the video footage of the 2014 Gulf Summit held in Doha during which the Gulf kings and emirs praised Qatar’s policies and partnerships, disappeared. Despite the fact that such news stations had covered every second of the conference, now they don’t even have the speeches of the participating delegations. They also didn’t forget to erase the television interviews and other interviews conducted over the years that stressed the unity of the Gulf countries.

This carefully studied erasure of the media archive reminds us of what George Orwell wrote in his novel “1984”, when the hero is charged with destroying old newspapers that talk about things contradictory to the new narratives day after day. However, deleting the videos from websites seems easier than destroying them in a large fire and re-formulating old history. For this, we can condemn the inventors of new technology who have made the process of saving and destruction easy. All of this has been done while those in charge thought they could control the memories of the people merely by tasking their employees with erasing videos.

A shift in a political position does not mean the destruction of the past and forcibly erasing it, as if it never happened. If the past was so bad and warrants this overwhelming hostility on air, we must ask what is the use of the “professional” media if it is silent about these facts and has hidden them for decades, as long as they are issued by an ally or brother

Translated from Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, 20 June 2017.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.