The Peninsula Newspaper
Wednesday, 27 July 2011 02:25
One of the blessings of the Arab revolutions and its international effects is the shameful fall of the corrupt media, whether it was controlled by personal interests such as Brtain’s ‘News of the world’ or it is attached to the authoritarian Arab regimes, its symbols and its subsidiary bodies through the press, radio and television. The attempt to control and censor the new media also failed miserably. The mobile phone and social networking sites sparked the Arab revolt and are still giving it life and continuity through the films and videos that come out of the depth of the cities and Arab streets besieged by tanks and armed forces showing the world what is happening and going on and disclosing the silence of the international and Arab community which is still standing watching what is happening, especially in Syria.
I woke up early on Sunday to get the last Sunday issue of British’s News of the World, but I failed to get the issue. Many of the readers were waiting eagerly in the early morning in the queues to get the last copy! The News of the World is one of the oldest British newspapers and widely read. It is 168 years old and read by more than 7.5 million readers. The newspaper is distributed in the whole world and its weekly issue is released every weekend. But its last issue appeared different and its cover page carried the title “Thank you and goodbye” the tears, shame and scandal. The newspaper gained great popularity thanks to its allocation of space to publish stories, scandals of celebrities, relationships, sexual and financial scandals and various crimes that occur in the society. The owner of the newspaper, Rupert Murdoch, decided to shut it down finally and with a collective decision of the Board of Directors after a wave of revulsion was raised around the world and the advertising companies abandoned the newspaper in the wake of the scandal surrounding it.
The newspaper was caught in a scandal of eavesdropping on a large number of relatives of victims, both in ordinary crimes and terrorist activities. The tabloid took help from a number of policemen, informers and even criminals to get information by paying bribes and money under the table in order to monopolize the news. Despite the exposure of the scandal a few years ago, the paper did not stop its disgraceful activities of eavesdropping on phone calls of a number of celebrities in art, sports, politics and stars of the society, although it has allocated a budget ranging between 20 and 30 million pounds (about $ 33 to$ 50m) to compensate for the affected persons! The big bang came when the newspaper The Guardian recently disclosed that the British police concluded that the phone of the girl Milly Dowler (13 years), who was kidnapped and murdered (her body was found in 2002) was tapped by the journalists working with the News of the World and in it there was a clear forensic evidence that could shed light on the crime of her murder. The girl’s parents announced that they are in the process of filing a lawsuit against the newspaper and its parent company. The news led to a state of popular and media agitation and sparked a controversy about the ethical contents and the freedom of the press and the limits that it must not cross. The scandals intensified when it was discovered that the paper itself is eavesdropping on the phones of an unknown number of relatives of the victims of terrorist attacks in London in 2005 and it also eavesdropped on a large number of relatives of soldiers who were killed in the war in Afghanistan. In the United States, the media owned by the Murdoch Empire is under probe to detect if they did the same in tapping the phones of relatives of the victims of the World Trade Center. The senior editorial management in the newspaper is involved to encourage the reporters to follow the illegal methods to bring news and reports as it also asked the reporters to obtain the specific information for the benefit of the newspaper, regardless of the price paid for that.
The editorial management in the Arab world represents order and authority. It does not need to eavesdrop on celebrities and opponents as the entire country is observed and all the people are under siege, but the result is similar in the East or the West. It distorts the facts and spreads lies and slanders. The government media, especially the Gulf media ignores the real change in the region. It may not publish or may not interact and does not take firm and stern positions in case of the popular revolts and Arab demands that call for the democracy and political reforms.It is mentioned that when Bolshevik Revolution took place in Moscow, the Ottoman media puzzled over how to mention the news and where it should be placed on the first page or inside. The list of prohibitions set by the sergeant of the Ottoman high door is very long. It prohibits the use of words such as revolution, the will of the people, communism and overthrow of Kaiser. The newspapers of Sultan Abdul Hamid came out with the following headline: Brawl in Moscow. It is the case of coverage by much of the Arab government media of what is going on in the Arab world.
Many Arab countries reap today what their dirty media hands did. They practised fraud and deception and covered up the repression, tyranny, injustice, absence of freedoms, defense, advocacy of a state of emergency, political deadlock, corruption, economic exploitation and muzzling. They attacked free views, clapped, cheered and blessed by pushing the dissidents and reformers in prisons and detention centers and the price is being paid by Tunisia, Egypt to Libya, Syria, Yemen and the rest on the way through the rebellious people who came out of the oblivion demanding to overthrow the corrupt system and the inactive media.
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