Arab Media & Society

For example, the decision by Egypt’s Nilesat to pull the plug on Al-Hiwar, a London-based channel critical of the Mubarak regime, undermines claims that the Satellite Broadcasting Charter recently adopted by the Arab League is aimed primarily at hard-line Islamist stations radicalizing the youth.

That charter is emblematic of the degree to which Arab governments are struggling to cope with the cacophony of criticism seeping into their countries through satellite television, the Internet and SMS. Opponents no longer just rally; now they “twitter.” Banning TV cameras is no longer enough when every cell phone is a potential weapon in the media war. Social networking sites where 12-year-old girls trade make-up secrets have become breeding grounds for revolution.

The media ripple effect creates waves of information, breaching the walls of censorship with which Arab leaders have so long defended their castles. Each new story about public discontent reinforces the last. Peasants angry about the price of bread sympathize with intellectuals angry about rigged elections, who in turn support the rights of factory workers hundreds of miles away. Thus bloggers are jailed in Saudi Arabia, websites are blocked in Bahrain, Morocco blocks transmission of al-Jazeera’s Rabat-based Maghreb program, newspapers in Yemen are shut down and in Princess Rym’s own kingdom four journalists (one of whom was in the elite audience for her speech) were convicted for reporting a story that was factually correct.

That Lebanon has been driven back to the brink of civil war over efforts to shut down Hezbollah’s telecommunication network, and that the militia’s immediate response was to silence Saad Hariri’s pro-government Future TV and al-Ekhbariya TV channels and burn his newspaper, are further reminders that media are a central tool of power in the modern Middle East.

Lest we forget that even those who portray themselves as white knights sometimes have dark hearts, we must take note of news that the Pentagon has secretly set up a network of Potemkin news sites – including the Arabic Mawtani.com and Maghrabia.com – designed to peddle propaganda under the guise of independent journalism, and that the U.S. military finally released Al-Jazeera cameraman Sami al-Hajj after six years imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay and freed AP photographer Bilal Hussein, who served 735 days in detention in Iraq. No evidence, no charges, no trial in either case.

That they have been freed is a positive turn in the plot, but it is likely to be a long time before any Arab journalist lives happily ever after.

Lawrence Pintak is director of the Kamal Adham Center for Electronic Journalism at The American University in Cairo and publisher/co-editor of Arab Media & Society. His latest book is Reflections in a Bloodshot Lens: America, Islam & the War of Ideas.