Syria Today | Blurring the Lines

As new forms of local media fill in the gaps left by traditional coverage, they are becoming an unabashed tool for polarising the masses.

By Sarah Abu Assali & Muhammad Atef Fares
Photo Carole al-Farah

Nine months into protests against Syria's regime, it is hard to picture the whole situation. A few cities such as Damascus and Aleppo are calm. Students go to school daily and cafés are full of people at night. By contrast, videos from Homs and other areas that have witnessed violent clashes show buildings pulverised by artillery shells and deserted, blood-stained streets.

Reflecting this disjointed reality, neither traditional nor digital and interactive new media have been able to portray the entire picture. Nor do they agree on how to achieve this. Meanwhile, Syrians are searching for credible information from local media struggling with entrenched obstacles.

Narrow windows of opportunity
"Syrian media is that of the Syrian public…they are on the ground and, consequently, an objective reflection of the events that Syria is witnessing," insisted Habib Salman, news director at state-run Syrian TV. However, both pro- and anti-regime traditional media outlets exchange accusations of lying, partisan mobilisation, provocation and unprofessionalism. Both also claim that they alone provide an objective and accurate portrayal of Syria, especially in "hot zones" where few journalists are granted access.

Indeed, access remains a key factor in this controversy. State media, which continue to report on what they call "armed terrorist gangs smuggling weapons" from neighbouring countries, quote largely from anonymous military or other official sources. Anti-regime satellite channels, run by Syrians who operate from outside the country, as well as international media, focus instead on the activities of shabbiha (thugs), security forces, and the army. These outlets depend on accounts from activists, eye-witnesses, protestors—especially famous ones such as Abed al-Basit al-Sarout, the Syrian national football team's goalkeeper, and actress Fadwa Sulayman—and amateur videos.

According to Salman, all journalists are free to work in Syria. "Syria opens the door for all to come," he declared. "The strange thing is that [foreign satellite channels] have their offices inside Syria, but we do not know how they do not receive [correct] information. This is illogical, unethical, and unprofessional."

However, the opposition and protestors tell a different story. They say that no foreign media have been granted unfettered access, and that consequently, all reports produced from inside Syria were either delivered by undercover journalists aided by local activists, or in the course of organised visits sponsored by the government to support the official story of events.

Mazen Darwish, Director of the Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM), a non-governmental organisation, believes that since the events erupted, Syria's official and private media have absolutely embraced the same political stances as the regime and ended up on one side of the conflict becoming "tools for promoting and adopting the official story."

Darwish argues that the Syrian media's approach is to try to cover up the real essence of the problem by portraying it as "a state of confrontation with the West" as opposed to a problem of "freedom, democracy and the control of security apparatus over every single detail of Syrian people's lives".

"This [official] media discourse, which is not consistent with the demands of a large segment of Syrian citizens, puts Syrian media channels in a state of constant running in order to refute what is happening in Syria," Darwish said.

In November, the SCM published a report on the authorities' crackdown on media workers in Syria between February and October 2011 which documented 109 cases of human rights violations against 95 journalists, bloggers and intellectuals for their coverage of the current events.

The report indicated that the Syrian authorities had made a "formal declaration of war on media…except for the Syrian media outlets that hold close relations with the Syrian government." Even these, the report added, "were allowed to cover specific areas only."

The sole surviving witness
Since traditional, censored media are limited, new, uncensored ones are taking up and expanding the job. Social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, which were blocked until February 2011, have become a major source of breaking news on protests and opinion-sharing, especially among younger generations of Syrians.

Most accessed websites in Syria
(1 the most, 13 the least) Source: Alexa Global Internet Traffic Index (Data as of May 2011; Syria was later removed from the index) More than 19 percent of the population uses the internet in Syria Source: World Internet Statistics (as of June 2011)

Syrian Local Coordination Committees (LCC), which organise activism in every Syrian city, originally started on Facebook and are now an umbrella for protestors across Syria. The LCC recently established a media centre in order to be "the voice of the people who are protesting in the street," according to their Facebook page, which has over 15,000 followers.

Many news networks have also mushroomed on Facebook to cover protest news around the country. Flash and Ugarit, as well as Sham, Homs, Idelb, and Hama News Networks are some of the most well-known. Their administrators work in secrecy, and they have been key resources in covering the unrest. Although their videos and images cannot be easily verified, foreign news channels often use them in their daily reports.

Citizen-journalism has thus been pushed to the forefront of the news. YouTube is now an arsenal of amateur videos filmed by anyone with a mobile phone camera. OnSyria, a Syrian privately-owned news website, has to date posted more than 93,000 videos, becoming an online archive documenting the events in Syria. Eye-witnesses who provide live commentary on the protests have replaced field correspondents; some of them, though they use fake names, have become well known to TV audiences.

"Thanks to… a loose network of activists, this revolution has been seen live online," said BBC reporter Jane Corbin. Likewise, Lebanon-based British journalist Robert Fisk agreed that YouTube is the Syrian opposition's official mouthpiece.

Social media are fast, accessible and also promise more space f0r freedom of expression. "Why would I bother using traditional media if I have a censor-free platform such as Facebook or Twitter?" independent journalist and activist Khaled Elekhtyar wondered.

But despite the greater scope for freedom it entails, using social media for reporting or campaigning is not at all risk-free. Bloggers and even ordinary Facebook users have been subject to arrests by security forces since the revolution erupted.

Female Syrian blogger Razan Ghazzawi went missing on December 4. Activists said she was arrested on her way to Jordan where she was supposed to attend a conference on freedom of the press. Ghazzawi's last posting on her blog reported the release of fellow blogger Hussein Ghreir, who was freed in late October after 37 days in jail.

The Syrian Electronic Army also launches "virtual" attacks on anti-regime websites and sometimes tracks activists. A female blogger from Damascus, who requested anonymity, told Syria Today that her blog has been hacked by a "brigade of the Electronic Army" for her anti-regime writings.

First started as a Facebook page, the army is now a "civil organisation" with its own website, media centre and recognition from the regime. In a speech on June 20, President Bashar al-Assad thanked the "efforts of the Syrian Electronic Army" in defending the country.

A new genre: "anti-news news"
Originally meant to inform and communicate—in theory, objectively—local Syrian media are now inseparable from activism and mobilisation. Indeed, Salman praised both public and private Syrian media for being "one front facing an international and global media front which depends on a virtual reality."

Salem al-Sheikh Bakri, a 25-year-old media worker from Addounia channel, pointed out the "obvious provocation" some satellite channels practice by calling for protests in a given area before the events happen.

Most-watched and most credible channels according to Syrians
(1 the most, 13 the least) (1 the most, 3 the least)

This polarisation has created a new genre of meta-news: that is, news denouncing the news presented by "the other side". Bakri prepares popular daily broadcasts of Attadlil Al-E'lamy (Media misinformation) reports, which claim to prove that many videos and pictures showing anti-regime protests and alleged activities of security forces are fabricated, unprofessional or false.

The government has also adopted the mode of amateur video documentaries. Most recently, at the opening of a press conference on November 28, Foreign Minister Walid al-Mu'allem, who said he did not have a Faceboook or a Twitter account, streamed a lengthy video of amateur footage of what was said to be mutilated bodies of Syrians, including army soldiers and members of security forces killed by "armed terrorist groups".

These claims about the video's origins were disputed on the same day by a number of anti-regime Facebook news pages, Lebanon's Future TV channel, and Al-Jazeera, which said that some shots in the video were of an incident that took place in Ketermaya in Lebanon a year ago and that others were of sectarian clashes that took place in Lebanon in 2008. In response, a special news report the next day on the Syrian Satellite Channel claimed in that these allegations were false.

This new way of presenting information as primarily an exposé of other channels' falsifications has also been used, sometimes to humorous effect, by anti-regime media. In its opening coverage of the Syrian army's entering Deir ez-Zor in early August, Al-Jazeera showed an image of a tank heading towards the city. The voice-over stated: "This is not a tank, and that is not Deir ez-Zor."