Latest issue of Arab American Affairs/News Circle Magazine is out; Media Bias
The News Circle magazine, published in Glendale, California, celebrates its 35th year of publication this year. The first issue was a newspaper broadsheet and the front page included a story, in June 1972, about whether Jim Abourezk would get elected to the U.S. Senate, one of the nation's first Arab American members. (He won his seat the following November). It also featured a look at a visit by leaders from Palestine coming to the U.S. and a story on the Arabic Orthodox Church leaders in California. And, President Nixon issued a proclamation celebrating the 10th anniversary of an Arab American funded hospital.
Their formal web page is: http://www.Arab-American-Affairs.net. (But it might be having some internet issues for now. You can also try the sister web site www.ArabAmericanHistory.org) The magazine is published by a great Arab American journalist, Joseph R. Haiek.
Whether it was Arab Americans protesting Israeli occupation abuses around the country ot celebrating their heritage, the News Circle began a long trek documenting the activites of the Arab American community. There were few Arab American newspapers in the country at the time. Although President Nixon was, on one hand, reaching out to Arab Americans, secretly the Red Squad in Chicago and FBI offices were operating under "Operation Bolder" to investigate anyone who was of Arab heritage, citizen or not.
(The Chicago FBI office launched an investigation into me, months after I was honorably discharged from U.S. Military service during the Vietname War -- an amazing contradiction in so-called American Freedom. The report basically abused and slandered me, asserting I "might be" a terrorist. Of course, just the mention is enough to indict an Arab American of being anti-American, despite patriotic service in the U.S. Military.)
There are very few places where Arab American history has been documented. For the most part, the mainstream American media has ignored the Arab American community, except when there is controversy or tragedy in the Middle East. Whenever something bad happens in the Middle East, I always get the call from a reporter, "Ray, what's your response to the terrorism that killed the Israelis?"
What do you think my response is? Cheering? The question implies a negative answer, like somehow I am a terrorist, too. (Which later prompted me to write the book "I'm Glad I Look Like a Terrorist: Growing up Arab in America" which the news media proceeded to ignore -- with the exception of Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune who gave it a glowing review. So take that you bastard biased and behemouth mainstream American news media!!!! :))
I got a chance to speak to a media class at Northwestern this week and the focus was news media bias against Arab Americans. How do you cover such a broad topic in only 90 minutes? The students were very sympathetic -- of course, maybe it is because I always include humor and my standup comedy routine in the presentations to wake them up :)
Does media bias exist? Yes. In reporting, only inadvertently by reporters who experiences are limited and who don't have broad access to Arab American resources and sources (something I think is the fault shared by Arab Americans themselves.). The real bias, though, exists on the Op-Ed pages of the mainstream newspapers, and now on Internet news sites like Poynter and HuffingtonPost.com where Arab voices are few and far between -- even though the Middle East and Arab and Muslim worlds are center stage and the MOST IMPORTANT topic in the world today. Why would you want to hear from a bunch of Arabs anyway?
But I also focused on how the news media is a business. They are there to make money, not make people happy. And professionalism only goes so far against the almighty dollar. The news media is really a process, or a system. An institution. It's not just reporters seeking out news, it is communities and audiences influencing the media using other related media institutions such as professional public relations, which is something most Arab Americans lack. They don't use the PR News Wire, for example, as often as they should, so they are not contributing to the beast which feeds as much on screaming headlined news as it does on a PR Industry that pushes stories and provides compelling presentations to make some stories of interest to editors.
It's a complicated business, that Fourth Estate. And the challenge is to make the media live up to its somewhat false advertising of being free and open, while also demanding that Arab Americans shoulder their burden to participate in the proper and professional way with the news media.
-- Ray Hanania
www.ArabWritersGroup.com