The Current Discussion: American newspapers are in dire financial straits. How are newspapers faring where you are? Are you concerned about the future of journalism in America or in your own country? What does that future look like?
Even before the current international financial crisis, newspapers in the Arab world were struggling to survive and remain somewhat relevant in the face of diminishing financial resources, shrinking advertisement, and reduced distribution. The plight of the print media in the Arab world has been exacerbated by the incredible proliferation of satellite television, the growing penetration of the Internet, and the recent expansion of the blogosphere. Today most Arabs, like most Americans, unfortunately get their news from television and other new media.
These changes in the media landscape pile atop newspapers' other ailments: control or heavy influence by the powers that be, lack of credibility, inability to engage in serious investigative journalism (an impossibility in the absence of the rule of law and an independent judiciary to protect journalists and their sources) and old-fashioned intimidation by the State and some in the opposition. Together, they have elevated the crisis to the level of an existential threat.
Many newspapers are scraping by because of political factors that have very little to do with the business of printing and publishing. This is true of most newspapers in the Arab world: the local ones, as well as the so-called pan-Arab publications headquartered in Europe, which are also dependent on an Arab market susceptible to pressure and manipulation. The crisis of the print media has been made worse in recent years by the flight of many accomplished print journalists (professionals who tried to enlarge the circle of free expression and reporting) to the more rewarding jobs in satellite television stations.
The demise or near-death of some American newspapers (The Chicago Tribune, The Christian Science Monitor, The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, not to mention the many local important papers) and their emigration to the blogosphere is deeply disturbing. It depletes the print media's ability to investigate and uncover abuses of power in government and Congress, and graft and waste in the corporate world. Some web sites and blogs can and have tried to play this role with some success; but new media needs time to develop the tradition, the professional editorial guidance and support, as well as the financial resources to conduct the kind of investigative journalism, and the coverage of an increasingly complex world, at which American print journalism has excelled.
The influence of the American media, print and electronic, is universal. Arab satellite stations "look" like American networks. Sometimes the good, the bad and the mundane are copied. However, the overall influence has been positive. That is why the current crisis of print media in America has deep ramifications - not only for American media in general and American democracy but for the future of good journalism in the world.
Finally, the reporters covering the Arab World for the major American print media, and to a lesser extent the television networks, have done a commendable job, all the way back to their coverage of the Sabra and Shatila massacres in Lebanon in 1982 and the first Intifada. After some initial stumbles in Iraq, publications such as the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Time magazine, and the New Yorker have uncovered the abomination called Abu Ghraib, the premeditated killings of civilian Iraqis at the hands of American soldiers at Haditha, the secret prison network managed by the CIA, the National Security Agency's monitoring of some American citizens' international calls... just to name a few.
The future of newspapers looks bleak. Unless publishers and editors come up with new viable business models, and new creative paradigms, that would preserve the uniqueness of the newspaper, we will continue to recite passionate requiems for the passing of a great American tradition.
Hisham Melhem is the Washington Bureau chief of Al-Arabiya and a correspondent for the Lebanese daily Annaha.
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Comments (3)
I'm not sure about the rest of the GCC but here in the United Arab Emirates print journalism is alive and thriving. There has been a recent launch of an English language paper The National and here in Abu Dhabi, there are four daily papers. Three are English language and one is in Arabic.
May 25, 2009 4:35 PM | Report Offensive Comment
Posted on May 25, 2009 16:35
Pity poor Messr Melhem. Like Joe Farah, the Arab with the Zionist brain transplant at 'WWW.WorldNetdaily.com' he seems to be unable to separate the 'wheat from the chaff' when it comes to the US' Jewish owned and operated media. Especially, their endless attempts to make a 'silk purse from a sows ear,' when it comes to terrorist Israel. It certainly has been an exercise in futility and the Italian, French and British news sources routinely 'puts them to shame' when the truth is finally 'cornered.'
All the massacres in Gaza (1948-2009) and in Lebanon (1982-2006) with their graphic photos of massacred women, children and men in the hands of the bloodiest of the Zionist 'interlopers' has escaped the people of America inasmuch as these types of graphic 'revelations' never seem to get past the Jewish 'censors' in the US media, lest Israel's Dr. Jekyl & Mr Hyde psychic comes to haunt the sheeple regarding who these murderous bible demons 'truly are.'
Today, and after the recent Durban II Conference on Racism, where the Jewish riff-raff' made such a 'shrieking sound of a hyena in 'heat' that the world could not get past this Zionist created havoc; as well as the US, Canada, Italian and Australian 'Chuptzah' that was displayed, as they 'covered up' the Jewish states genocidal war crimes in Gaza and instead reverted to the old 'worn out' - "We are the eternal 'Holocaust' victims and thus have the right to murder and maim and displace the people of Palestine who had nothing to do with the Halocaust." - But, who are, nevertheless a lot easier to 'beat-up and displace' than the EU anti-semitic race supremists that ran us out of Europe and stole all we had previously stolen from them under the Rothchild gangsters in the preceeding century(ies), LOL!
The end is near and as we see the Taliban, Hezballah and Hamas regrouping against the US/NATO/Israeli aggressors that came from near and as faraway as 10,000 km. to murder, maim and steal natural resources like oil and gas - and now are tearing into little impotent countries Serbia (Kosovo), Georgia (Ossetia), Afghanistan (UNOCAL oil/gas piplne) in order to add insult to injury by forcibly and under the power of the machinegun, imperialism and their bloated hegemonic tendencies are now 'stealing' access routes for Azerbaijani oil and gas to get it to the EU countries - no matter how many problems they will create with the Russian bear that seems poised to show them the hard part of the Putin/Medevev 'steel toed boot' much as Mikheil Saakashvili found out in 2008, LOL!
TheAZCowBoy
Tombstone, AZ.
'Kill 'em all 'freedom fighters' of Hezbollah, the Taliban and Hamas,' - Let their G-d sort them out.
May 23, 2009 5:11 PM | Report Offensive Comment
Posted on May 23, 2009 17:11
It is gratifying that an Arab journalist of the stature of Hishem Mehlem would credit US newspapers with presenting Americans with the truth concerning American actions in the Arab world. Of course, all the truths that he cites are offenses against the Arab world, but that is OK. At least, he believes that American newspapers are presenting us with the truth about are shortcomings in the world. However, I wonder whether he thinks that these same newspapers are presenting us with the same truth when they report on Israel, or in that case are they not giving us the "real" facts?
May 23, 2009 10:56 AM | Report Offensive Comment
Posted on May 23, 2009 10:56