A Survey of Arab Television: Part I - News

One of the most noticeable - and from a purely aesthetic standpoint, unfortunate - elements of the Damascus skyline is the absurd amount of satellite dishes. Television is ubiquitous in Syrian life. Every business seems to have a t.v. . . . either to keep the owner/employees entertained when things are slow, or as entertainment for the customers. Only uber-fancy and more traditional restaurants seem to be (thankfully) without television. What are Syrians watching? What are the choices for entertainment? What's the deal with TV in Syria? Well, I'm going to break-down a few things that I've noticed in this SURVEY OF ARAB TV!


Q: What are the options ? What are people watching?

A: While I'm far from the Syrian branch of Nielsen, I'd put things into four major groups of entertainment/genres that seem to be often watched in both the public places and private homes: News, Music Videos, American Films, Arabic Soaps. This post will deal with 'News'!


1. NEWS OPTIONS:
Two major news channels seem to dominate here (and for local politics, people tune into Syrian Television): Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabia. Sadly and for reasons unknown, I don't get Al-Arabia on my satellite system. While people like Donald Rumsfeld have gone on record attacking Al-Jazeera for being an anti-American propaganda machine, I'm quite skeptical of such assertions as well as doubtful that Mr. Rumsfeld has actually seen much Al-Jazeera. Granted, Al-Jazeera is very critical of American Foreign policy - I see this as more of a reflection of viewer demographics and less as some deep-rooted attempt to turn the Arab viewing audience against the United States. I mean, one has to sell advertising, don't they? As with American media and the division between left-right oriented news outlets, I have a sense that people gravitate toward news channels that reinforce already held beliefs. God forbid that anyone should hear facts or arguments that are inconvenient to their political bent
The award for most unwatched channel appears to be the American-government run/supported channel "Al-Hura" which has two channels: one openly broadcasted from Iraq and appears to cover her exclusively. The other has a something vaguely appearing to be 'programming'. The title itself is a bit over the top. The Bush administration, never shy about engaging in "Politics and the English Language" and seemingly incapable of nuance, evidently settled upon the name Al-Hura: meaning 'Freedom' . . . . . This is so tacky and pathetically obvious, in title alone, that I wonder how this idea passed early 'screening' stages. According to my Syrian friends, no one watches this channel, and if they do they don't tune in for news. In fact, Syrians are fond of saying that if what they are seeing in Iraq is democracy: they don't want it.
Anyway, back to Al-Hura. Now, I don't know much about creating viewer pleasing programming; however, an hour-long documentary on Geisha Culture in Japan followed by News that seems to have some NON-Arabic Speaking representative from the American Government just doesn't sound like a recipe for success.
The picture here is of Secretary of State Condi Rice giving a speech at Georgetown University concerning a call for an increase and re-deployment of American diplomats. Al-Hura is covering this - this is fine in and of itself, many Arabic News organizations spend quite a bit of time covering the words and deeds of the US government. Where, however, Al-Hura differs from other networks, is that they cover these speeches LIVE and in their entirety - including, in this case, questions from Georgetown undergrads praying that one insightful (yet) softball question on C-SPAN and Al-Hura will secure them a dream job at the State Department.
I'd be shocked if American news networks covered this entire speech, especially if a high-speed and potentially violent car chase is in progress on the highways of Southern California. Sure, the Bush crew wants to bring democracy to the Middle East - I don't want to touch that issue on this blog - however, is it necessary to bring the really really really boring part of democracy to the Middle East? Winning hearts and minds is easier when it doesn't produce sleep. However, one saving grace is that Al-Hura re-broadcasts NBA games with Arabic sportscasters: and those guys do a pretty great job, actually. It's a shame that this program is only on weekends.


NOTE: Propaganda is most effective when:
1. Actually watched by the target audience.
2. Features exposed or partially exposed breasts.
3. Is accompanied by direct force.


I've also found - and perhaps I'm wrong on this and I don't have the data to back this up - but in watching a fair amount of Al-Jazeera, I find that they aren't covering the 'War in Iraq' nearly as much as they cover Palestine. In fact, I've been surprised at how relatively small the coverage the Iraqi war receives on Al-Jazeera. Part of this, I imagine, is related to the fact that it just isn't safe for them to send reporters into Iraq and unlike, perhaps, American news organizations, they may not be granted as much access and protection from American Forces. Granted, this is merely speculation on my part, which is itself part and parcel of having a blog: irresponsible and sanctimonious speculation.

Okay, readers, next post will be about 'fun TV' . . . . . . . . . . so break out the party-hats