Iraq Media Developments

Divergent views

Some Iraqi media personnel believe that in this new era the media deviated significantly from what the true objectives of any media should be, including pinpointing errors, defects and shortcomings, strengthening the sense of belonging to the homeland, and adherence to noble human values like rights, freedom and justice.

They claim that the new era's media have entrenched the concepts of sectarianism, tribalism and ethnicity and helped to develop a narrower perspective on how to deal with the homeland's problems. They did not strengthen the sense of belonging to a united Iraq that is the homeland of every tribe and sect.

They refer to the proliferation of "diseases" in the journalistic profession including the stealing material from each other or publishing scandalous reports and fabricated news with the aim of achieving an unwelcome sensationalism that cannot achieve any noble objective as the more sober media would seek to do, something that the Iraqi people urgently need today.

Those who hold a different view proclaim that the upsurge through which the Iraqi media, of all types, are going through would not have occurred without the freedom that the new era has given to journalists.

They give numerous examples including the fact that it is now possible to criticize and publish political cartoons about the president, the prime minister and cabinet members in addition to other freedoms to which Iraqi citizens had not formerly been accustomed.

The new era's media

Perhaps it is now possible for us to examine the most striking features of the new published and audiovisual media. The first change has been the freedom of owning satellite dishes. It is now possible for an Iraqi viewer, while sitting in his home, to switch from one foreign television station to another, something that was forbidden in the former era.

As a result of the openness, or chaos, that Iraq is now going through, new newspapers and magazines have been published that express various political, cultural and social outlooks. The number of newspapers in Baghdad alone has increased to more than 100. Regrettably a large number of these publications belong to various political streams and have become distant from the concept of true patriotism.

They have fallen into the pitfalls of political conflicts and nonsensical controversies. They are not using the wisdom and sobriety that are needed to heal the bleeding Iraqi wound.

Radio stations of various types

In the former era Iraqi citizens used to get their news from official sources and from state-owned or state-controlled media. Today they get their information from various sources that provide them with conflicting reports that can sway their beliefs this way and that way, especially in the absence of a clear official stance and an accurate source of information.

The news about the arrest of the former Iraqi president's deputy Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri and the subsequent confusion that the government and some of its officials showed over this case serves as a good example.

Immediately after the former regime's collapse various political parties, budding political forces and even imported political streams rushed to divide the former regime's media inheritance among themselves. Some political forces and parties seized the former regime's media establishments in preparation to start new radio broadcasts that reached only a small part of the country. Other circles imported new broadcasting equipment and began to establish their own radio stations.

The new radio stations are unable to make their broadcasts reach the entire expanse of Iraq. In several Iraqi provinces some circles, especially religious ones, began to use the transmission relay facilities and auxiliary stations to which the former regime resorted when its main radio stations encountered some technical difficulties. These circles exploited these facilities to establish local radio stations that barely covered the province in question. The US forces also had their own radio stations that broadcast songs and some military instructions.

Additionally an unspecified number of private radio stations sprang up, including stations that were financed by clandestine or foreign circles. To put it briefly, it was no longer possible to learn accurately the number of new radio stations. The fact that no binding law has been enforced to organize all this broadcasting activity helped to spread the chaos.

Although this proliferation of radio stations has its negative aspects, it also has some positive side effects. Iraqi citizens can now criticize anyone they want, make their views heard on every issue, and comment on the steps that the government is making.

Ahmad al-Rikabi, current director of the private radio station Dijlah, became known to Iraqi listeners as the first radio announcer to be heard on the station that the occupation forces established two days after the occupation of Baghdad began last year. He says that it is very necessary for the Iraqi people to express their convictions and make their views heard after decades of repression. Al-Rikabi, who left Iraq in mid-2003 in the wake of a dispute in which he was involved regarding a certain government post after the Iraqi Media Network was founded, remarks: We are trying to establish bridges between the people and the ruling authorities. The Iraqis see this radio station, although it is still new, as the medium that is best able to express their views and convictions.

However, the new experience of the Iraqi radio stations is not entirely positive or free of problems. It is difficult to deal with the issues with a new outlook particularly during this transitional phase when the Iraqi people have to free themselves from the legacy of the universally held single opinion and look to the future with hope and freedom.

Television stations

What is said about the abundance and diversity of the new radio stations in Iraq can also be used to describe the new television channels.

In the past Iraqi citizens had three local television stations and one satellite channel that also transmitted terrestrially. In the two years preceding the occupation Iraqi citizens were given the opportunity to view 14 Arab stations of various types by special subscription. Nevertheless, the Iraqis remained eager to watch whatever global stations they could get by using satellite dishes. When the new era began, the occupation authority established a television channel that was so wretchedly poor in quality that it failed to find someone who would agree to run it or pay any attention to it.

Soon, however, the Iraqi visual media experienced a new upsurge with the emergence of various Iraqi satellite channels. During the past year many Iraqi satellite channels, some Arabic-speaking and some Kurdish-speaking, were established. In the near future new satellite channels are expected to begin broadcasting including Al-Fajr, Al-Anwar, Al-Furat, Al-Diyar, Al-Huda and Al-Mashriq in addition to other satellite television stations belonging to political parties like the National Accord Movement and the Iraqi Republican Grouping, and two other stations, one for the Kurds and one for the Turkomen.

Although the US sought to sought to direct its station Al-Hurrah to Iraqi viewers primarily through the Al-Hurrah Iraq channel, it failed to draw viewers away from Qatar's Al-Jazeera and the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya and also the from Lebanese, emirate and Egyptian television channels.

However, the new station that has really drawn Iraqi viewers at home and abroad is Al-Sharqiyah, which has attracted a significant number of competent Iraqi media personnel who formerly found themselves without a job when the Information Ministry was abolished.

Despite all the obstructions and various serious security problems into which some forces are trying to drag Iraqi society, the Iraqi media are expected to experience a new leap forward when the Iraqis enjoy some measure of stability, when they reject peripheral and false news reports, and when they reject the personalities and figures that are still living in a dark age and that proliferate only in an atmosphere of instability and chaos, which is exactly the atmosphere that Iraq has been experiencing since the occupation began.