Where is the truth in the battle for Syria’s narrative?

15 Jun 2012 | Middle East and North Africa

This is a propaganda war, a diplomat in Damascus told the BBC’s Paul Danahar, “you can’t take anyone at face value now”.

SNIPERPHOTO AGENCY | Demotix

The war of words over the Syrian revolution has been brutal, and for some, fatal. Revolutionaries and Assadists have tried desperately to control the narrative, with Bashar Al-Assad admitting on Russian TV that he was losing the propaganda battle.

From the beginning of this uprising reporters have feared that the regime was targetting journalists — they were set up as legitimate targets as soon as the government accused some of being part of the international conspiracy against Syria. The regime arrested and threatened journalists from Al Jazeera, which it believes is supporting the uprising. Before its Damascus bureau was shut, there were regular pro-regime demonstrations outside and staff faced regular harassment in attempts to silence them. Syrian authorities barred members of the station from entering the city of Daraa, where the uprising began on 15 March last year. Officials also pressured Syrian employees of the station to quit, and told journalists that they could not appear on air or communicate with Al-Jazeera’s headquarters in Qatar.

And now there is evidence that some Free Syrian Army [FSA] fighters may also be trying to get journalists killed to score points in the media battle.

Earlier this month, Alex Thomson, chief correspondent at the UK’s Channel 4 News, accused four fighters (two armed) of forcing his convoy into onto a blocked road in the middle of “no-man’s land” near the city of Al-Qasyr, where the regime was shooting. He speculated that the FSA wanted to land Assad with an international diplomatic incident, similar to that which followed the killing of Marie Colvin in Homs. Thomson’s team had a lucky escape.

The day after Thomson made his accusation, a Qatari member of the now disbanded Arab League monitoring mission, Nawaf Al Thani, accused the FSA of leading him into a trap to be killed in the city Zabadani, which is close to the Syrian-Lebanon border. That day, Al Thani was travelling with CNN reporter Nic Robertson who also reported on the incident, but didn’t blame the FSA.
Despite Al Thani’s support for the British reporter’s claims, some revolutionary activists were outraged, accusing Thompson of exaggerating the story for career gain. As the chorus of anger grew, Thompson stood by his story, saying that he merely reports reality.
Of course, the Assadists are milking this for all it’s worth. Iran’s Arabic-language state broadcaster Al-Alam (and its sister station Press TV) ran Thompson’s accusations, although I can’t quite remember them discussing his reporting of the graphic Houla massacre, where he suggested that the government had been lying.

Both the revolutionaries and the Assadists are reporting half-truths, often picking and choosing the stories or accusations favourable to their version of events. That is understandable. What is unforgivable is the way that some broadcasters and publishers have bought the opposition or regime line wholesale and uncritically.

“There’s almost no one condemning the regime, for example, whilst simultaneously questioning the dominant opposition narrative,” complains Jillian C York. “Those who dare search for truth are immediately labelled as being on one side or the other.”

That search for the truth has been hampered by the Syrian government’s refusal to allow international journalists into the country during most of the uprising. Reporters were forced to choose between YouTube videos uploaded by activists, or the regime’s increasingly ludicrous propaganda. The revolutionaries’ strategy was far more sophisticated, immediate and effective. A senior Western official told the BBC World News Editor that their tactics were “brilliant,” if sometimes misleading.

But is that surprising? The revolutionaries have an agenda. Citizen journalists are not supplying the international media with footage to further their own careers – they are doing it to tell the world about the horrors taking place on their doorstep. When they use mobile phones to film demonstrations, they put themselves in the firing line – they are active participants in the revolution, not outsiders looking in.

With an official ban on journalist visas in place, handfuls of brave reporters have managed to sneak across the border to report on the massacres that the government did not want them to see. The revolutionaries are often desperate for a voice, and have escorted journalists into the country and protected them once they were in the war zone, often at considerable risk to themselves.

Journalists — reporters sneaking across the border, and brave citizen journalists living under siege — are at the heart of this story. They are Bashar Al-Assad’s greatest fear. His father crushed the uprising in Hama in 1982 because the world was not watching. Back then, news of the killing of at least 10,000 people did not reach the outside world for weeks.

This time, things are very different, and it is the reason that Syrians are being threatened with death for simply daring to tell the world what is happening.

The regime knows it can still outgun its opponents on the battlefield. But on screen, it has already lost the war.

Sakhr Al-Makhadhi is a British-Arab journalist who has lived and worked in Damascus. sakhr.co.uk

Nine-year-old school dinner blogger gagged

15 Jun 2012 | News and features

UPDATE 1.35pm : Argyll & Bute Council have lifted the ban on Martha Payne’s school dinner photography.

Photographs included in the blog of a primary school student’s school dinners have been banned by her local council.

Martha Payne, from Argyll in Scotland, started her blog Never Seconds, “one primary school pupil’s daily dose of school dinners”, to document the food served at her school, and rate them with marks out of ten.

In a blog post entitled “Goodbye” yesterday evening, Martha, known as Veg, explained how she had been taken out of her maths class by the head teacher, and told that she could not take any more photos of her dinners after a headline in a newspaper.

Since she began blogging Martha has used her blog to raise money for charity Mary’s Meals, who set up school feeding projects in communities struck by poverty. The young blogger asked readers to join her “in helping give lunch to children that really need it.”

Martha explained that she was sad that she would no longer be able to take pictures, and receive pictures from followers, and added “I don’t think I will be able to finish raising enough money for a kitchen for Mary’s Meals either.”

Prior to the final post on her blog, which had been backed by celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, Martha had blogged daily, detailing what she had eaten, and marking her lunches in categories including “number of mouthfuls”, “health rating” and “pieces of hair”. In response, users from around the world shared images of their school lunches, which Martha also published on the blog.

The young journalist and activist’s father took to the blog to provide readers with a little more detail on the day’s developments. He wrote:

“Martha’s school have been brilliant and supportive from the beginning and I’d like to thank them all. I contacted Argyll and Bute Council when Martha told me what happened at school today and they told me it was their decision to ban Martha’s photography.”

It is a shame that a blog that today went through 2 million hits, which has inspired debates at home and abroad and raised nearly £2000 for charity is forced to end.”

Photographer Paul Clarke questioned what issues the council may have been troubled by, adding:

“If I may, I’ll just park the “obvious” one – that they don’t want to be criticised publicly. The relevant issues to my mind are some old favourites in relation to images and technology: place, control, liability and of course precedent.”

Since posting her Goodbye, interest in the blog has spiked, with 425 people commenting on her post, and a massive increase in donations to her JustGiving page. At the time of posting, the activist’s Just Giving page had shot up to a massive £10,819.70 in donations.

One photo published on the blog showed an “alright” pizza, while another blog post added “the good thing about this blog is Dad understands why I am hungry when I get home.”

Argyll and Bute Council have confirmed that they have asked the schoolgirl to stop taking photographs of her lunches. A strongly worded statement released today said:

“Argyll and Bute Council wholly refutes the unwarranted attacks on its schools catering service which culminated in national press headlines which have led catering staff to fear for their jobs.

“The Council has directly avoided any criticism of anyone involved in the ‘never seconds’ blog for obvious reasons despite a strongly held view that the information presented in it misrepresented the options and choices available to pupils however this escalation means we had to act to protect staff from the distress and harm it was causing. In particular, the photographic images uploaded appear to only represent a fraction of the choices available to pupils, so a decision has been made by the council to stop photos being taken in the school canteen.

“There have been discussions between senior council staff and Martha’s father however, despite an acknowledgement that the media coverage has produced these unwarranted attacks, he intimated that he would continue with the blog.

Twitter users have taken to the microblogging site in support of the blog. Jamie Oliver tweeted:

Conservative MP Louise Mensch tweeted:

while Daily Telegraph Editor Tony Gallagher dubbed Argyll and Bute “the most stupid council in Britain” and described the decision as “the daftest own goal in a long time.” #Neverseconds was also trending on Twitter before 10am.

Councillor Mike Harris, also Head of Advocacy at Index on Censorship said:

“Councils often seem to forget they have the duty to protect freedom speech. When you get absurd cases like this, or the example of South Tyneside Council suing one of its councillors for libel, it shows that local government isn’t up to speed on its legal obligation to protect and promote free speech.”

As the website’s stats hit 2382060, and continue ticking over, it seems Argyll and Bute Council have created themselves a bigger PR disaster than an innocent blog from a young girl ever would have. Food for thought, if nothing else.