THE GUARDIAN: In their Egypt coverage the Arab media – like the regimes they report on – have failed to move on from the old ways
Faced with an event of Berlin Wall magnitude on its home turf, the Arab media is torn over the uprising in Egypt and how to report it, if at all.
In the old days, the media's role was not so much to report the news as to "guide" the public, shielding them from "harmful" information or anything that might inflame their passions.
That ceased to be a viable option more than 20 years ago with the arrival of satellite television, especially al-Jazeera, and since then the internet has made it less viable still. And yet, large sections of the Arab media still persist in their hidebound ways.
At the weekend, while al-Jazeera was providing minute-by-minute coverage of events in Tahrir Square (and generally doing it better than western news organisations), Egyptian state television was focusing its cameras on quieter parts of Cairo, including a tranquil bridge over the Nile.
In Oman, ruled despotically by Sultan Qaboos for the last 40 years, it is much the same. The Oman Observer seems only interested in reporting government news from Egypt.
On Sunday, its headline was "Mubarak picks vice-president" and on Tuesday it was "Egypt unveils new cabinet". This morning, after yesterday's dramatic events in Cairo, it ignores Egypt completely.
In the same country, meanwhile, the Times of Oman has been playing a slightly straighter bat: "Egyptians seek million-strong march to oust Mubarak". It even quoted a protester saying: "The only thing we will accept from him [Mubarak] is that he gets on a plane and leaves." >>> Brian Whitaker | Wednesday, February 02, 2011
