The postponed truth in Arab journalism

We cannot settle for personal rivalry nor bitterness alone between Dawood Alshirian and Nadim Koteich. The real dilemma lies in the architecture of Arab media itself, and the extent to which political money controls its discourse.
This toxic cultural clash between Alshirian and Koteich has spilled into the public sphere, dragging with it the very notion of media freedom, independent journalism and the meaning of being a salaried employee who protects his job while forgetting the essence of journalism.
It is easy today to call journalism the “Fourth Estate,” but hard to believe it still is, especially in the Arab world, where media outlets resemble polished propaganda leaflets: fluent in justification, skilled in disguising impotence.
The existential crisis journalism faces today is not merely economic nor about dwindling audiences. It is about its collapse before two dominant forces: a sick market and political authority, neither of which has any interest in a free press. That is what the personal feud between the Saudi and Lebanese journalists revealed, and what the public interpreted as a reflection of Arab media’s freedom when monopolised by political power.
Western journalism has its own crises, but it still manages to expose power. When the Financial Times published an investigation into political influence networks in Brussels, columnist John Thornhill wrote, “Effective democracy needs journalism that challenges power, not content designed to flatter it.” If journalism fears influence, it must redefine its mission.
In the Arab world, missions are not redefined, they are reduced. Media outlets do not monitor power-;- they normalise it.
Ever since journalism became an industry, it lost part of its message. It no longer produces truth-;- it produces for the market. This shift turned journalists into PR employees, not newsroom editors. The feud between Alshirian and Koteich exposed that Arab media is not run from editorial desks, but from funding offices. Meanwhile, the historical lesson left by the framers of the US Constitution was their preference for a country without government over one without a free press. What idealism, barely found even in American journalism, let alone in the Arab world.
In a free press, the editor decides what gets published. In Arab journalism, the editor is a facade. Decisions come from above, from the funder´-or-the regime. That is why content cannot be questioned: it is not produced within journalism, but dictated to it. This renders the feud between two media figures mere theatre, on a stage whose lighting neither controls.
Free journalism assumes a free audience. But the Arab public has been marginalised, neither consulted nor addressed, merely instructed. It does not demand truth because it has not been trained to need it. Journalism that does not speak to the audience’s mind becomes an internal bulletin for the regime, not a mirror of society.
The Arab journalist today cannot afford neutrality. He either writes what is demanded´-or-is silenced. This brutal choice does not produce journalism-;- it produces content. And content does not expose power-;- it beautifies it. That is why the feud between Alshirian and Koteich is not just personal´-or-professional-;- it reflects the media’s own impasse.
The problem with Arab media does not start with the editor-;- it starts with the funder, as Alshirian pointed out when speaking of Gulf states.´-or-as seen in Iraq, for example: once media funding became a political tool wielded by governments, parties, businessmen and sects, journalism could no longer write about corruption without permission´-or-address failure without guidance. It survives on the margins of power, writing in its grey zones, where truth is postponed until further notice.
The Arab media market is indeed sick. But sicker still is the political system that insists on keeping it unhealed. Free journalism threatens failed systems because it names things as they are. That is why most Arab governments, instead of supporting journalism, try to break it, because it makes them feel exposed.
Years ago, I wrote: it is clear that Arab governments do not devise strategies to rescue newspapers from crisis. They prefer to see them stagger, then subdue them, as they have done throughout modern history. But by abandoning media outlets to struggle without support, they commit a grave error: ending the existence of free journalism and opening the door to corruption, institutional decay, and the suffocation of ideas and talent. Journalism, as a historical force, is not a monologue for government news alone. And today, it pays the price of its success, by being financially besieged to death.
The latest Reporters Without Borders ranking placed most Arab countries at the bottom of the press freedom index, citing “a hostile environment where media is run with a security grip and invisible censorship is imposed.” Ironically, this is often done in the name of “fighting fake news,” the most lethal excuse against truth in the new century.
It is no surprise to find major newspapers published in Arab capitals filled with canned opinions, source-less reports and news attributed to “informed sources” that live in fiction. The disaster is not just the absence of independence, it is the transformation of journalism into a loyal servant of government, parties, sectarian narratives, and the wealthy, instead of being a mirror of society.
Still, the path to salvation does not lie in lamentation nor toxic cultural feuds à la Alshirian and Koteich. What independent Arab media needs is not just funding-;- it needs principled protection of its right to err and correct, to question rather than justify, to uncover rather than promote. Without political will invested in securing an independent media space, journalism will remain a tool in the hands of political failure, just as intended by those who failed politics.
The existential crisis we face today is not just journalism’s, it is society’s-;- a society that was rendered ignorant and fragmented until it abandoned its need for truth. As for the Arab journalist, he now faces two choices: to write what is demanded, as Alshirian described,´-or-to be silenced, as Koteich exemplifies.

Rate the article
Bad	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Very good
Result : 100%							Participated in the vote : 1