‘Muslims Need to Be Media Savvy’
Siraj Wahab, Arab News
JEDDAH, 14 September 2006 — Muslim businessmen should buy into global media outlets to help change anti-Muslim attitudes around the world, said information ministers from Muslim countries at a conference that began at Jeddah Conference Palace yesterday.
Information ministers and officials meeting under the umbrella of the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) said Islam faced vilification after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
Tackling the rising tide of Islamophobia in the United States and Europe is one of the main points being discussed by the information ministers at the two-day gathering, which was formally opened by Crown Prince Sultan yesterday.
“We need to come up with a joint action to face up to the challenges of our time, especially with the rise of hate crimes and Islamophobia in the West and the confusion resulting from the unfortunate mixing up of Islam with terrorism,” said OIC Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu.
“Muslim investors must invest in the large media institutions of the world, which generally make considerable profits, so that they have the ability to affect their policies via their administrative boards,” he said. “This would benefit us in terms of correcting the image of Islam worldwide.”
The idea met instant approval from Saudi journalists.
“The suggestion has come a little late in the day, but as they say it is never too late to mend,” said Khaled Batarfi, managing editor of the Jeddah-based Al-Madinah newspaper.
Incidentally, this was the exact conclusion of Batarfi’s dissertation from the University of Oregon in 1999.
“During my research on the US media bias toward Israel, I discovered that the friends of Israel in the US had bought huge stakes in the media outlets there and this was done very methodically and with the specific purpose of shaping US opinion in favor of Israeli policies,” he added. “They realized this very early on.”
According to Batarfi, another good idea of reaching out to the Western world would be to come up with the English versions of Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya television news channels.
“They are well-established and professionally-run channels but they are in Arabic,” Batarfi said. “If they were in English I am sure it would do a world of good in presenting a correct picture of Islam and Muslims to the outside world.”
Faiza Ambah, a respected Saudi journalist whose bylines appear regularly in the Western press, said the idea of buying into the Western media outlets in itself was good.
“But more important than that is to make our own media outlets more credible,” she told Arab News. “It is not that people in the West and the US are not reading our newspapers and not watching our television channels. They are. But they are generally seen as state-run publicity tools. We need to make them credible for the outside world to take them seriously. This requires serious effort.”
Ambah felt the Arab and Muslim media were long on rhetoric and short on credibility: “We need to turn our media outlets into credible sources of information. Once we do that we will automatically be heard by the outside world.”
A Western journalist based in Riyadh and who has been covering the region for international news agencies for 10 years said the idea of buying stakes in Western media outlets was valid, “but then it shouldn’t have been announced publicly. It will only alarm the other side and create unnecessary friction. It should have been done rather discreetly.”
He felt the Western media outlets would be on guard against any hostile takeover bids originating from this idea of creating a Muslim voice in the mainstream Western media.
According to Reuters news agency, Prince Alwaleed ibn Talal owns 5.46 percent of media conglomerate News Corp., the Rupert Murdoch-run group behind the Fox News Channel. The US channel is widely perceived as promoting right-wing views on issues ranging from US foreign policy to immigration and as being no friend of Arabs or Muslims.
“Despite Prince Alwaleed’s stake in Fox, nothing has stopped its rabid anti-Arab and anti-Muslim tirade which is such a shame,” the Western journalist pointed out.
Earlier this week, Culture and Information Minister Iyad Madani was blunt in his criticism of the Arab and Muslim world media.
“In Bosnia, in Nigeria, in Mindanao, did any of the Arab or Islamic media people go there?” Madani asked. “Our media establishments lack fieldwork. I don’t mean any offense, but coming to attend this press conference and reporting about it in the newspaper tomorrow is the easiest thing. The difficult part is to go to Mindanao to cover a major catastrophe.”
JEDDAH, 14 September 2006 — Muslim businessmen should buy into global media outlets to help change anti-Muslim attitudes around the world, said information ministers from Muslim countries at a conference that began at Jeddah Conference Palace yesterday.
Information ministers and officials meeting under the umbrella of the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) said Islam faced vilification after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
Tackling the rising tide of Islamophobia in the United States and Europe is one of the main points being discussed by the information ministers at the two-day gathering, which was formally opened by Crown Prince Sultan yesterday.
“We need to come up with a joint action to face up to the challenges of our time, especially with the rise of hate crimes and Islamophobia in the West and the confusion resulting from the unfortunate mixing up of Islam with terrorism,” said OIC Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu.
“Muslim investors must invest in the large media institutions of the world, which generally make considerable profits, so that they have the ability to affect their policies via their administrative boards,” he said. “This would benefit us in terms of correcting the image of Islam worldwide.”
The idea met instant approval from Saudi journalists.
“The suggestion has come a little late in the day, but as they say it is never too late to mend,” said Khaled Batarfi, managing editor of the Jeddah-based Al-Madinah newspaper.
Incidentally, this was the exact conclusion of Batarfi’s dissertation from the University of Oregon in 1999.
“During my research on the US media bias toward Israel, I discovered that the friends of Israel in the US had bought huge stakes in the media outlets there and this was done very methodically and with the specific purpose of shaping US opinion in favor of Israeli policies,” he added. “They realized this very early on.”
According to Batarfi, another good idea of reaching out to the Western world would be to come up with the English versions of Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya television news channels.
“They are well-established and professionally-run channels but they are in Arabic,” Batarfi said. “If they were in English I am sure it would do a world of good in presenting a correct picture of Islam and Muslims to the outside world.”
Faiza Ambah, a respected Saudi journalist whose bylines appear regularly in the Western press, said the idea of buying into the Western media outlets in itself was good.
“But more important than that is to make our own media outlets more credible,” she told Arab News. “It is not that people in the West and the US are not reading our newspapers and not watching our television channels. They are. But they are generally seen as state-run publicity tools. We need to make them credible for the outside world to take them seriously. This requires serious effort.”
Ambah felt the Arab and Muslim media were long on rhetoric and short on credibility: “We need to turn our media outlets into credible sources of information. Once we do that we will automatically be heard by the outside world.”
A Western journalist based in Riyadh and who has been covering the region for international news agencies for 10 years said the idea of buying stakes in Western media outlets was valid, “but then it shouldn’t have been announced publicly. It will only alarm the other side and create unnecessary friction. It should have been done rather discreetly.”
He felt the Western media outlets would be on guard against any hostile takeover bids originating from this idea of creating a Muslim voice in the mainstream Western media.
According to Reuters news agency, Prince Alwaleed ibn Talal owns 5.46 percent of media conglomerate News Corp., the Rupert Murdoch-run group behind the Fox News Channel. The US channel is widely perceived as promoting right-wing views on issues ranging from US foreign policy to immigration and as being no friend of Arabs or Muslims.
“Despite Prince Alwaleed’s stake in Fox, nothing has stopped its rabid anti-Arab and anti-Muslim tirade which is such a shame,” the Western journalist pointed out.
Earlier this week, Culture and Information Minister Iyad Madani was blunt in his criticism of the Arab and Muslim world media.
“In Bosnia, in Nigeria, in Mindanao, did any of the Arab or Islamic media people go there?” Madani asked. “Our media establishments lack fieldwork. I don’t mean any offense, but coming to attend this press conference and reporting about it in the newspaper tomorrow is the easiest thing. The difficult part is to go to Mindanao to cover a major catastrophe.”
posted by HRM Deborah of Israel and the Messenger of Peace at 7:29 PM
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