Voting, Not Violence, Is the Big Story on Arab TV
By HASSAN M. FATTAH

AMMAN, Jordan, Jan. 30 – Sometime after the first insurgent attack in Iraq this morning, news directors at Arab satellite channels and newspaper editors found themselves facing an altogether new decision: should they report on the violence, or continue to cover the elections themselves?

After close to two years of providing up-to-the-minute images of explosions and mayhem, and despite months of predictions of a bloodbath on election day, some news directors said they found the decision surprisingly easy to make. The violence simply was not the story this morning; the voting was.

This New York Times article is a surprisingly positive one about both the Iraqi elections and the way in which Arab media covered them.

Of particular interest is the coverage of the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya network,

The daylong reporting of the election process, details on the personalities and almost step-by-step guides to the voting were a significant departure from what the Arab news media has produced in some time.

Perhaps the most ambitious effort came from Al Arabiya, which had eight satellite trucks broadcasting from across Iraq, as well as numerous video phone links from Mosul, Baquba, Ramadi and elsewhere, and live feeds from neighboring countries. To give particular emphasis to elections coverage, Al Arabiya also built a special studio for the event. Al Arabiya executives did not disclose the total outlay for the effort, but said it was significant.

“We think this is a very important event, not just in Iraq but in the Arab world,” Mr. Hage said. “It’s the first real democratic event in the whole region and it deserved the attention.” Giving the event such special attention, Mr. Hage said, would help build Al Arabiya’s brand as a critical news source, if not expand its viewership.

Al-Arabiya is the second-favorite satellite TV channel in Saudi Arabia (after Al-Jazeera TV). It reaches millions of viewers and has an influence. Its positive coverage of the elections is sending a message; that message is being well-received.

If you think the messiness of Iraq is without positive consequence throughout the region, you’re simply wrong. Read the article to see the direction Arab media went in its coverage of the elections. Very good piece.

Thanks to Belgravia Dispatch for the pointer. [Note: the link to the NY Times article will, unfortunately expire in a week or so.]

Donna Abu-Nasr, reporting for the Associated Press from Riyadh, also has a very good piece, interviewing a cross-section of Arabs about the elections. I’ve worked on stories with Donna and consider her exceptionally professional. Of particular note are the comments from Saudi Shi’i:

Some of Iraq’s Sunni Arab neighbors have expressed fears a Shiite-dominated government in Iraq could join with Iran to form a Shiite crescent, threatening traditional Sunni dominance of the region and inspiring potential political claims by other Shiites.

Al-Hamad, who lives in the Eastern Province, said Saudi Arabia will only fear a Shiite government in Iraq if it allies itself with Iran, which had called for exporting its 1979 Islamic Revolution beyond its borders.

A Shiite government in Iraq will not inspire unrest among the kingdom’s Shiites, he said.

“They are not demanding self-rule or an alliance with Iran. They just want rights that citizens in any country expect,” he said. “A Shiite government in Iraq will give them the confidence to lobby more persistently for those rights.”