"Promoting Freedom of Speech and Press"... in Bahrain?

News today is a new Arab TV network is to be launched early next year. The imaginatively named "Al-Arab" is to be a rival of Al-Jazeera. It is to focus on the 'important shifts taking place across the Arab world, with an emphasis on freedom of speech and freedom of press'. It is the brain child of a Saudi prince, Alwaleed Bin Talal. And it is to be based in Bahrain.

The entire idea is laughable at first sight. That a Saudi prince would want to promote the Arab Awakening, when his family has opened its arms to exiled heads of states. That he would base himself in Bahrain, where his country's military repressed the Bahraini movement and helped temporarily crush the free press - there is a reason a Bahraini journalist was singled out for an International Press Freedom award by the Committee to Protect Journalists, an award given to those who have put their lives on the line to stand up to oppression. Such a network cannot exist in his home country, where free speech is non-existent. A Saudi Arabian base for Al-Arab is an impossibility; a Bahraini one is ironic.

It all sounds too ridiculous to believe. Compound this with the fact that the same man has only in the last week bought a $300m stake in Twitter, one of the most important social networks to the revolutions, and you have to wonder what Bin Talal is up to.

Is he really lining himself up as a patron of political and press freedom? Or is he excercising his power as one of the richest men in the world to protect his family from the very same things? Perhaps we'll find out next month, when Al-Arab launches.

Late Night Musing

Over the holidays I've picked up Robert Fisk's The Great War For Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East again. Part history, part autobiography, it took me a while to invest fully in this 1000 page epic - I bought it over a year ago, in fact - but I'm now finding it to be the most engrossing non-fiction I've read in a while, which is why I'm writing this at three in the morning.

At the point I'm at in the book, Fisk has been covering the the Iran-Iraq war for eight years, and one event's coverage has been self-apologetically skewed by the world's media. In 1988, an American warship shot down a commercial airbus travelling from Bandar Abbas in Iran to Dubai, killing all 290 passengers and crew. Amongst the dead was a wedding party, all in their dresses and suits. One young mother died cradling her year-old son. The west's immediate response was justification - that there were terrorists on board, that it was making a suicidal dive for a US warship, that it was an 'understandable' mistake, and so on. When Fisk's own investigative report showed the blame lay almost entirely on the US, that it was a loss of life that never needed to happen, his report was heavily censored to remove the anti-western slant. This led to his resigning from The Times and going over to The Independent.

I'm writing this because in one paragraph Fisk sums up the importance of a free press and its responsibility and duty in disseminating information (emphasis mine):

It's easy for a journalist to become self-important about his work, to claim that he or she is the bearer of the truth, that editors must stand aside so that the bright light of a reporter's genius may bathe the paper's readers. It's also tempting to allow one's own journalistic arguments to take precedence over the ghastly tragedies which we are supposed to be reporting. We have to have a sense of proportion, some perspective in our work. What am I doing - what is Fisk doing, I can hear a hostile reviewer of this book ask - writing about the violent death of 290 innocent human beings and then taking up five pages to explain his petty rows with The Times? The answer is simple. When we journalists fail to get across the reality of events to our readers, we have not only failed in our job; we have also become a party to the bloody events that we are supposed to be reporting. If we cannot tell the truth about the shooting down of a civilian airliner - because this will harm 'our' side in a war or because it will cast one of our 'hate' countries in the role of a victim or because it might upset the owner of our newspaper - then we contribute to the very prejudices that provoke wars in the first place. If we cannot blow the whistle on a navy that shoots civilians out of the sky, then we make future killings of the same kind as 'understandable' as Mrs Thatcher found this one. Delete the Americans' panic and incompetence- all of which would be revealed in the months to come - and pretend an innocent pilot is a suicidal maniac, and it's only a matter of time before we blow another airliner out of the sky. Journalism can be lethal.

It's easy, especially so in the coverage of a war, to fall into a black-and-white view of things. If we are invested in it ourselves, we naturally want to portray 'our side' as in some way better. This may have been written about an event twenty three years ago, but it resonates with the coverage of stories today. The abuses carried out by Libyan revolutionaries against black 'mercenaries', many of whom were only in Libya to make a legal living, was underplayed compared to the wreckages left in the wake of Gadaffi's army. Our media whole-heartedly supported the burgeoning democratic movements in North Africa until Islamist parties came to the fore, at which point it became a much more sensitive subject.

The examples are not as striking as Fisk's, but the spirit of them is the same. When news is clouded by political agendas and biases, the news also begins to carry those biases, which affect our perception of events. Then again, it's also difficult not to be entangled by political biases. I suppose a journalist can only strive to report events as they, and avoid impressing what they want those events to mean.

Perhaps it's because it's that hour of night when everything seems thought-provoking, but I felt like sharing that.

Let's Kill the "Middle East"

The "Middle East" is the only region in the world primarily defined by its relation to another, that is, Europe and more broadly "The West", including Britain and America. It is a term that has been used for approximately 100 years, and while the term has passed into common usage since its introduction, it's time we let go of it.

The terms "Far East" and "Near East" exist, but they have largely fallen into disuse, except in either a historical sense, or where their relation to Europe is relevant. What we called the Far East is now China, North and South Korea and Japan, just as India and its neighbours make up South Asia, and the countries from Burma to Papua New Guinea is South-East Asia. The term Near East once meant the Ottoman empire, but since its dissolution and Turkey's tendencies away from Asia culturally, it's only a historical term now.

East, South, South-East, Central Asia; Western, Northern, Eastern or Southern Europe; North, Central or South America; West, North, East, Southern Africa. These terms carry no implication besides their place on the world map. We ignore the social, political and economic relations of every one of these regions in the world. They are named only in relation to their place on their individual continents. The labels we give the regions of the world are apolitical and solely geographic, if to an extent arbitrary.

Yet the region that would otherwise be called West Asia is defined by its relation to the West: Europe and the USA, in turns their allies and rivals. Even in Arabic, the region is called Assharq Al-Awsat, literally, "the Middle East".

A Guide to Outside Broadcasting

OBs have been some of the most technically difficult things we've tried to deal with this semester. They regularly cropped up from the beginning of November all the way to the 30th, and we never quite managed to get them to work right. This guide won't give a definitive answer to doing an OB, but it's an accumulation of the knowledge we gained over the last few months. We definitely need to put some more work into it before we'll perfect it, but I have a feeling that if this isn't put down to paper we'll be making all the same mistakes months from now.

Kit

iPhone: I don't know the technical side of it, but we have about ten GVs from Tom the week we went down to London for the student march. He could upload it almost as fast as you recorded the videos, and then it was down to the people in TAB09 to take the videos off youtube and edit the good stuff together. The quality isn't too bad either. So if you have an iPhone, or are thinking of getting an iPhone, keep in mind that it can come to some genuinely good use as OB kit. It's also possible that you can get the same result from many smartphones out there on the market, but I don't know enough about phones to say.

Laptop: With a laptop you can skype and you can film things at a last resort - all laptops have inbuilt webcams these days and they aren't too shabby. Also worth noting, a laptop can be easily balanced to sit on top of a tripod (taking the anchoring slab off the top helps). This was how we filmed Tom's piece to camera on the day of the student march. Mac or PC? Mac is better, simply because their laptops come with a firewire port, so you can hook up a PD170 if you want or need to. This might be possible with a PC but I still haven't figured out how - perhaps a HDMI cable will be enough to hook a HD camera to a PC, but there's experimenting to be done. Stick to a Mac if you can, but if you can't you can manage with a PC, provided you're only using Skype.

PD170: Using a firewire you can plug a PD170 into a Mac, and using iMovie you can stream video straight from your camera to the Macbook's hard drive. Also, if you're streaming to iMovie, you can have a gun (or other) mic plugged into the camera, and that sound will be streamed/captured as well. You can also set Skype to stream from your PD170 instead of the default webcam, so it's useful for a live OB as well. You could bring a person to stand in front of the camera and transmit the footage, rather than feeling like a bit of an awkward plonker trying to do so in front of a laptop.

Cannon 550 (or other camera): The 550 is the camera only media production students are allowed to use as they come out of their budget, but the loan counter claims there'll be more of these eventually that other students can book out, so it's worth putting down. Other cameras, like that £100 canon you might own, can be used. The theory behind them is essentially the same - you can film onto an SD card, transfer it to your computer and upload it to youtube. Most laptops come with an SD card tray these days, so it shouldn't be a problem. They're technically made as still cameras though, so how good the footage will be may vary. The 550's worth mentioning because it's a professional camera - and the more professional the equipment looks, the more respected we are on the field. So a 550 is miles better than that pink little camera you got for your birthday, just because it looks better.

Wireless microphone: We never actually used these, but I think they have potential use so here they are. At the loan counter you have to specifically ask for a wireless microphone-to-minijack cable (a minijack is the norm for headphones/mics on computers, mp3 players, etc). They're not on the system, but they can lend them to you informally. With this cable you can connect the receiving end of the mic to your computer and set it as the mic used.

Firewires: To connect a PD170 to a macbook you need either a 4-to-6 or 4-to-9 firewire cable. Which you need varies from model to model, so check your jack first. If the jack on the macbook is rectangular and resembles a usb jack, you want a 4-to-6 jack. If it is smaller and squarer you want a 4-to-9. Usb cables don't have the capacity to transmit as much information as firewires, which is why they can't be used.

Software 

iMovie: I'm no expert at iMovie and don't really know how to use it very well, but there's three important aspects to it. First, create a new project. Second, once you've plugged in a PD170, you can capture video straight onto iMovie - think of it as skipping the entire necessity of tapes. You're looking for the button with the camera icon on the left side of the screen. From there you want to drag the captured footage onto the timeline, and then edit if you can or want (I can't tell you how on iMovie). Export it and upload it on youtube. This is the closest you can get to our usual method of recording and editing footage.

Skype: You need a skype account to download the program, and then you'll need someone in the newsroom on the line. All you have to do here is wait for the call, and the production team will do their magic on the other end - here I don't know how they record it. If you're doing the OB, you just need to be ready. One thing to note, if you are using a laptop's integrated camera, do not read a script open on a document. We'll all be able to see your eyes flicking from left to right!

Youtube: Youtube has limited editing software. All it really allows you to do is crop the beginnings and ends of videos, but that can has its uses too.

Setups

PD170-Mac

• PD170 (or 150, or Sony HD)
• 4-to-6 or 4-to-9 firewire
• iMovie to capture
• No tape necessary!
• Gun mic can be plugged into PD170, it will be picked up by iMovie

Skype

• Integrated cam can do the job
• A wireless mic can be plugged into any laptop so long as you get out a mic-to-minijack cable
• Skype can be told to use a PD170 to stream

Canon 550 (or other camera)-PC

• SD card with 8+ GB
• The connecting cable
• And youtube

End Bit

First of all, the more put-together a piece is when you put it to youtube, the better. But if not you may have to rely on someone else who doesn't know as much as you do about the package to edit it together. Communication with production and editors is important.

Secondly, there is still one major issue we haven't yet figured out: internet. Where do we find fast, reliable internet, especially for live OBs? How do we split our time between editing/uploading and news gathering? I've done 3 OBs for WINOL and I'm still not sure. This is the major thing holding us back with OBs, if anyone's got an answer, it's more than welcome.

Existentialism

Existentialism is a philosophy dating back to the mid-to-late 19th Century. It is characterised by an inability, or feeling of inability, to understand a world that makes no sense. In this regard it is far removed from the empirical ideas that preceded it, and lends itself to the senselessness of the observable mind psychoanalysis looks at. Influential philosophers and writers include Nietzsche, Kafka and Heidegger. All German, although there are others such as Dostoevsky and Sartre, Russian and French respectively.

Totalitarianism

Qualities of totalitarianism:

• Fear of the regime.

• A total disregard for the law. The regime does not abide or seek to change the law to suit them, they just flaunt it. This feeds back into the first point: fear. When anyone can be apprehended for any reason - or without any reason - a culture of fearful obedience emerges.

• Obedience to the regime, even if the acts are perceptively evil. "I was just carrying out orders" was an excuse used by nazis after the war. This facet is explored in Milgram's famous experiment. The volunteer would be led into a room where a man in a white labcoat instructed them to deliver electric shocks of increasing intensity to a person (actor), and told they could stop at any time. The shocks would eventually reach deadly levels, and the actor would fake a painful death. The volunteer was told they could stop at any time, and the experimenter never told them they had to deliver shocks, but as it was suggested, and as they were reassured that the result of the experiment fell solely on the experimenter and not them, they did so. It was found that the vast majority of people would electrocute the man into at least intense pain if not death, and it was the minority who stopped early on. The experiment was controversial at home in the US, where the public believed they would be incapable of committing the crimes of the Germans. It is evident that the average person can easily become an unthinking follower of the regime, especially when there is no morality.

• An aim to destroy history, culture and beliefs that are not a part of the regime's image. There is no 'before totalitarianism' under such a regime.

• An 'Us vs Them' mentality. There is an enemy and an expected attack always just a moment away. This dichotomy is a powerful force as it unites the entire population of the regime as a single entity, with a sense of belonging. This belonging leads to a fear of this unity's severance by an enemy. Wanting to be a part of the regime and wanting to preserve their part of the regime feeds back into their obedience to it.

• The promise that a great future awaits. Hegelian improvement of the human race, or at least of the regime's people. This provides a justification for what might otherwise be considered immoral or inhumane.

Nazi Germany and Stalinism were the great totalitarian regimes, though there are others - North Korea being one of if not the last remaining, complete with the propaganda, war with America and South Korea ever expected and fear.

Frege's Logic

Before Frege, there was logic in the Aristotelian sense. The textbook example of Aristotelian logic is:

Fact: All men are mortal.

Fact: Socrates is a man.

Conclusion: Socrates is mortal.

Al Jazeera's Blackout on Bahrain

Just an interesting thing I noticed about Al-Jazeera a long time ago. I've pointed it out a few times on online forums, but I think it's worth warranting a small blog post - though it might be a few months late.

When Egypt was constantly in the headlines back in January, Al-Jazeera emerged as the first-stop broadcaster for news on the burgeoning region-wide movement. And while it has been brilliant in its coverage of Egypt and Libya, with Bahrain we see that Al-Jazeera is not without its own agenda, beyond seemingly embracing the 'Arab Spring'.

My interest in Bahrain's events at its peak, I was almost constantly on Al-Jazeera, reading up on everything happening. And its coverage was good to begin with. In the first month of the protest,; it seemed they had the interest of spreading the Bahraini peoples' message at heart.

Things went sour in Bahrain when on the 14th of March, exactly a month after the then-called 'Pearl Revolution' began, the Saudi army rolled in, dispersing the protesters from their camp and decimating the iconic pearl roundabout. Suddenly, Al Jazeera, which had so readily reported every morsel of news from Egypt, Libya, Syria and Yemen, stopped reporting on Bahrain. On both Arabic and English channels.

30th November

WINOL's 30th November Strikes Special Edition is now out - check it out!

Unfortunately, I find hosting a youtube video on my blog quite difficult with the new blogger design, or I would have had it in this update, but it's there in that link. Featuring a few seconds of my (at the time live) semi-coherent babbling.

Tom Hepworth's Tips

Tom Hepworth, a video-journalist from BBC South came in to talk to us in the newsroom today. And here are the notes I typed up during his chat with us.

Clouding Reality with Labels - Arab Spring and Winter

The label given to the cultural revolution that has enveloped the Middle East has been deceptive to everyone who has used it. It was being called the 'Arab Spring' at least as early as March. A populist movement, it was widely regarded as a force for the Good of the region. But this simplification made it easy to ignore the complexities. The ground-breaking revolution of Tunisia, the expulsion of Mubarak from Egypt and the romantic war of the Libyans - which was only viewed as brutal with the death of Qaddafi, no longer a pharoahic figure but a victim of war. These overshadowed the struggles of Yemen, Bahrain and even to some extent Syria.

To call it the 'Arab Spring' is to paint the whole movement with a single brush, ignoring all the intricacies unique to each nation. It is a simplification that reeks of pan-Arabism and glosses over the difference in every country.