'Western Media Biased Against Arabs'

Western media are biased against Arabs, parrot government views and have a negative influence on western understanding of the region, a conference organized by satellite channel al-Jazeera heard today.

In a debate on whether world media build bridges or creates divisions, delegates were told that western media - and the US media in particular - need to concentrate on press freedom more than Arabic media and must radically overhaul their coverage of Arabic issues.

Criticism of western media came from both western and Arab journalists and academics.

Marc Lynch, a professor of political science at America’s Williams College, said: "After 9/11 a lot of Americans were not responding to the Arabic media, but to what they were being told about the Arabic media.

"The gap between how Arabs and Americans understand the world is enormous ... We need a real dialogue. Americans need to listen to Arabic media and vice-versa. We need Americans on Arab media," he said.

Countering criticism of the western media, the former editor of the Rand Daily Mail, Allister Sparks, said the Arabic world needed to get its own house in order first.

"There is a great need in the Middle East to have greater self-examination. The struggle for human rights begins at home. From what I hear there is a serious shortage of self-examination," he said.

Abdul Bari Atwan, the chief editor of al-Quds Al Arabi, said: "In the Arabic world there isn’t much freedom. We do not talk much about domestic issues ... if we had, maybe we wouldn’t be in the situation we are in now."

Mounir Shafik, the author, intellectual and former PLO director of planning, argued that freedom of expression and diversity of voices were greater in Arabic media than in the west.

"The dominant media in the west is playing a negative role in terms of building bridges because the margin of freedom in the western media is very small.

"The majority of western media do not allow people like me on their screens to build bridges. We need to give freedom of expression to the western media ... There is a spirit inside the dominant western media that does not reflect even the ideas of their citizens."

Some delegates made a distinction between US and UK media, with a greater diversity of voices heard in UK publications, but Fahmy Howeidy added: "The distinction between the US and British press is important but it is the US press that influences decisions and the whole world."

And another line was drawn was between the "dominant" mainstream media and emerging "alternative" media, which are helping provide a counterbalance but are unable to break into the mainstream.

"[Western media] has always bragged when comparing itself to the Russian media but ... it should stop comparing itself with the Soviet Union and start comparing itself with us," Mr Shafik said.