Arab Spring Coverage in NZ Lacking Professionalism

Auckland - The little coverage on issues about the so-called Arab spring attests to a “lack of professionalism” in New Zealand media, says a New Zealand journalist working for Al Jazeera.

Yasmine Ryan says while the most hits per capita on Al Jazeera English recently came from New Zealand, the mainstream media show little interest in the topic.

“I was surprised at the lack of solidarity,” says Ryan.

“The mainstream media doesn’t do its job. It’s as if this wasn’t happening.”

Ryan works as an online journalist for Al Jazeera in Qatar but went to Tunisia to cover the development on the ground after former President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fled the country on January 14, 2011.

Formerly based in Paris where she wrote for the International Herald-Tribune and other media, Ryan spoke at a public forum on coverage of the Arab uprisings and also at a Asia-Pacific journalism seminar at AUT University.

She is co-author of the 2004 book I Almost Forgot About the Moon investigating the detention of Algerian theologian Ahmed Zaoui.

A curriculum leader for journalism and a social media author at Deakin University in Geelong, associate professor Dr Martin Hirst, says it is a matter of news values.
“New Zealand does not have physical proximity to those countries.”

He says if there was a massacre with a number of casualties, New Zealand media would report it.

Social media training
Ryan underwent social media training by Al Jazeera just a month before leaving for Tunisia.

She says the increased surveillance by the remaining regimes does impose new challenges on journalism, but New Zealand media are left behind.

“This year I started to get a huge number of my leads through Twitter.”

Ryan says social media have been a crucial factor in the coverage of the Arab spring, and it is a lot of research work to get in contact with sources and several measures have to be taken to verify any information.

Moreover, the surveillance exposes any source to great danger.

One way to reduce this danger is the use of proxies that conceal the identity of online users.

She says it is important to develop a relationship with social media sources, who can help verify content.

Suppressive governments
However, Ryan says the suppressive governments still in place have learned from the successful uprisings in countries like Tunisia or Egypt.

They have increased surveillance that shuts down most online communication and the traceability of any activity puts sources into real danger.

She says countries like Syria or Iran have technologies in place that through so-called deep package inspection (DPI) intercept even Skype conversations. The conversations are then automatically transcribed and filtered for keywords, and officials are notified when those keywords are mentioned.

Despite these challenges, some information makes its way out of the country and then needs to be verified before Al-Jazeera uses it.

Ryan says there are several techniques to do so. These include checking the weather report if a video provides a time and place of recording.

Likewise, military or police uniforms as well as dialects can be an indicator of the integrity of the content.

Nonetheless, Al Jazeera also uses a disclaimer to dissociate itself with the content.

Digital signatures
However, Hirst says the use of proxies makes the verification through digital signatures, such as an IP address, impossible.

He agrees that verification before use is important even if the footage is quite compelling. Especially since repressive regimes also use social media to spread wrong information.

“You’re actually misleading your audience if you use material like that. But the disclaimer is not necessarily enough,” says Hirst.

Hirst says New Zealand media should train their staff in the use of social media and train them to verify unauthenticated content.

ENDS

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