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 A pan-Arab TV monitoring organisation – content monitoring, not viewers – would be Definitely A Bad Thing, according to Reporters Without Borders, which has come out strongly against proposals by the Arab League for just such a body.
The aim of the mooted Office for Arab Satellite Television is to clamp down on stations which offer their services to terrorist organisations. Specifically in the crosshairs, according to RWB, are broadcasters such as Hamas-affiliated Al Aqsa TV, Hezbollah’s Al Manar, and Qatar-based Al Jazeera, which will pretty much broadcast anything anyone sends it.
With the exception of Al Jazeera, it’s perhaps difficult to argue the case for these TV stations attached to paramilitary and/or terrorist organisations (delete according to political sympathies) broadcasting material that consists of direct incitements to violence – although against this is that whole pesky “freedom of speech” thing that people keep banging on about.
But RWB’s other issue is that while such an office may start off aimed at Terror TV, it may suffer something approaching mission-creep.
“The danger is that this super-police could be used to censor all TV stations that criticise the region’s governments. It could eventually be turned into a formidable weapon against freedom of information,” said a RWB statement.
Indeed, the inclusion of Al Jazeera on the list does suggest the nuisance factor might play a role sooner rather than later – and let’s face it, the Middle East as a whole does not have a good track record of allowing dissenting voices to be heard in the mainstream media.
RWB notes the proposals are still very much at a formative stage, with defined pro- and anti-OAST camps already emerging. In the pro corner are Saudi Arabia and Egypt, while Lebanon and (unsurprisingly, given Al Jazeera’s citation) Qatar are firmly against.
Beyond that, RWB asks, how the hell would such an office actually work? Presumably, in an effort to keep everyone happy and sovereign, it would be reduced to sending first a sharp note to the broadcaster in question, then a gentle request to whichever local law enforcement agency drew the short straw, which could conceivably simply end up in the B-1(n) file.
We’re going to go out on a limb and say that this sounds like a bad idea – but one that, for political reasons, may end up happening anyway. After all, the Arab world has to do something (or feels it has to, anyway) to be seen to be combating terrorism.
And after TV... what then? Print? Radio? The internet? Hey, there’s an idea...
Just something else for everyone in the media to be looking out for.
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