Joris
Luyendijk - They're Just Like Human Beings
By Michel Hoebink
24-07-2006
For Dutch journalist
Joris Luyendijk, six years of news
reporting from
the Middle East were a disheartening experience. He learned that the
news we receive from the region is manipulated on all sides and that it
is almost impossible for an individual journalist not to participate in
this circus.
In his recently published book They're Just Like Human Beings, Joris
Luyendijk tries to expose the realities concealed behind the seemingly
innocent images of the Middle East we encounter every day.
The book is a highly readable anecdotal report of his growing
frustration as a journalist rather than an academic analysis.
| The
net result is another media war, whereby the work of journalists serves
to
increase the alienation between the West and the Muslim world rather
than contributing to mutual understanding. |
From 1998 to 2003, Luyendijk was Middle East correspondent for the
Dutch newspapers NRC and Volkskrant and for Dutch public radio. He was
stationed in Cairo, Beirut and Jerusalem. He covered the period
including 9/11, the US invasion of Iraq and, of course, the never
ending Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
When he started Luyendijk still believed in the popular myth that the
journalist is a 'fly on the wall' who merely records what is happening.
But gradually he became aware that the news as it eventually emerges in
newspapers and on radio and TV, is manipulated, filtered and distorted
from all sides.
Blame the dictatorship
Luyendijk does not put the blame primarily on the media. Before
everything else, it is the situation in the Middle East that makes it
impossible to give an objective account of what is happening. Most
countries in the Middle East are dictatorships and, according to
Luyendijk, it is almost impossible to practice journalism in a
dictatorship.
In a dictatorship, the authorities have a monopoly on information.
Often, the required information is simply not available. To his
chagrin, Luyendijk regularly found himself reading a story on the radio
that had been sent to him from Hilversum. The information available is
unreliable and manipulated by the authorities. Journalists are
continuously hindered by information offices and government spin
doctors. Local contacts are often too scared to tell journalists what
they think or what they know.
Joris Luyendijk (c) In fact, says Luyendijk, the most important news in
a dictatorship is the dictatorship itself. But journalists cannot
afford to give that too much prominence, as they are dependent on that
same dictatorship for their visas and their privileges. Instead, they
adopt the deceptive rhetoric of the dictatorship. They write about it
as if it were a democracy, with elections, a president and a
parliament, without making clear that the elections are not free, the
parliament merely a rubber stamp and the president the head of a gang
of robbers.
It's a media war
Dictatorship is not the only filter. When reporting the
Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Luyendijk discovered what the term 'media
war' really means. Newspapers and TVs are not neutral windows on the
conflict, but stages where important battles are fought. The
perspectives of both parties are so far apart, that impartiality is
almost impossible. It starts with the choice of words to use: terrorist
or freedom fighter? Peace process or pacification process? All parties
involved do their utmost to manipulate the news and get their version
of the story across.
Luyendijk elaborates on the fact that the Israelis are far more
successful at this than the Palestinians. While covering an incident on
the West Bank, he found out the Israelis maintained an enormous press
centre there, where journalists were provided with the Israeli version
of events in several languages, accompanied by ready-made quotes and
route descriptions. He tried calling the Palestinian press officer, but
no one answered the phone.
Nor do the western media escape Luyendijk's scorn. Most western
journalists in the Middle East do not speak Arabic. They lead isolated
lives in hotels and luxury apartments, far removed from the poverty of
the ordinary people. They socialise mainly with each other and fail to
make or maintain contacts with the local population which might put
them in touch with the country they're writing about.
The home front
An even bigger problem is that the various parties' propaganda is
linked to viewing figures and Western journalists' desire to please
their audiences. Many journalists simply come to the Middle East to
find images that conform to the distorted perceptions of their viewers
or readers. In most Arab countries, a whole industry has developed of
local fixers and guides who anticipate these expectations and provide
journalists with every quote and image they desire in every possible
format and length: a crying mother, a flag-burning Palestinian, you
name it.
The US invasion of Iraq made Luyendijk acutely aware that many
journalists merely confirm existing stereotypes. Encouraged by the US
administration's propaganda machine, the Western media coverage of the
war degenerated into jingoist war rhetoric. Luyendijk also makes a
brief reference to the Arab media, who do the same in reverse. The net
result is another media war, whereby the work of journalists serves to
increase the alienation between the West and the Muslim world rather
than contributing to mutual understanding.
See also
Progressive Islam
Justice in Islam
The dark side of liberal Islam
The Civil war at the heart of Islam
Will the West reject Islam?
Islam and the rights of children
Should we be nice to radical
Islamists?
Fundamentalism is not necessarily
terrorism
Hamas
|