Arab Spring Governments Have A Big Problem With The Media

Michael Hedges June 18, 2012 Follow on Twitter

Calls to replace old media structures resound, far and wide, with popular surges toward democracy. The Arab Spring has been but the latest. The idealism of newly empowered citizens quite naturally seeks voice, some of which was found in new media and quickly. Traditional media is more difficult to turn.

Swiss-based media development agency Fondation Hirondelle was contracted in April 2011 to prepare Tunisian State radio broadcaster Radio Tunisienne for election news coverage. This project, mainly journalist training and organization, expanded to change agent, transforming a State broadcaster into a public service broadcaster. For the highly regarded Fondation Hirondelle it is something of a first. Its conflict and transition zone broadcasting projects have always been start-ups not associated with local governments, such as the UN-funded Radio Okapi in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

“In the case of Tunisia,” said project manager Samuel Turpin in a press release (June 13), “the post-revolutionary context was synonymous with real change at the national radio. Right from our first exploratory mission, we noticed a strong desire within Radio Tunisienne and its management for emancipation and independence. They were fed up with being associated with the political leaders. They were demanding to be able to serve their listeners and provide a quality public service.”

When the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) organized a Paris conference (May 31) to discuss “how to help public service media in Tunisia and Egypt” governments and public broadcasters pledged support for training, drafting new legislation and needs assessment. The European Union and the French Development Agency (Agence Française de Développement - AFD) offered money. Other conferences have been held all with the goal of obtaining consensus – and funding – to transform Tunisian State broadcaster ERTT into a “public service” broadcaster

The Western European model of public broadcasting developed in the aftermath of devastating conflict and civil disruption. For a generation supporters, idealists everyone, honed the definition to mirror social and political values of that reconstruction era. A new compact must replace State media, they said, with greater citizen control. That model seeks independence from the State as well as commercial interests, which public broadcasting supporters see as ultimately corruptible.

Tunisian media, like everything else, was under the strict control of President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali’s government. There had been furtive and highly controlled privatization efforts in the regime’s last years but broadcasting and the printed media remained the voice of the State. Mr. Ben Ali is now gone, exiled to Saudi Arabia, and the country’s media landscape has changed considerably. In the 18 months since Mr. Ben Ali’s departure three new television channels and five new radio stations have taken to the airwaves, not to forget a “blossoming” of new media channels.

After the fall of Mr. Ben Ali, the Tunisian transitional government formed an agency - The National Committee of Information and Communication Reform (INRIC) - to oversee media reform. It, too, conducted a study of the media landscape and proposed legislation covering press freedom and media plurality. The government, so far, has not enacted any of the proposed laws allowing old, restrictive rules to prevail.

“Falling back automatically on repressive laws inherited from the Ben Ali era endangers the spirit of the revolution,” said Reporters sans Frontiers (RSF) in a statement (May 10). UNESCO held its official conference for the 2012 World Press Freedom Day in Tunis (May 3rd through 5th ) because Tunisia was “the birthplace of the Arab Spring.”

Radio Tunisienne, which operates four national and five regional channels, has been in turmoil over its transition. In April General Director Habib Belaid was dismissed, after which four top executives resigned. Mr. Belaid learned he’d been sacked from his driver. “I have reached the legal age of retirement and I was expecting to pass the baton to another,” said Mr. Belaid to kapitalis.com (April 24), “but not to learn of my departure this way.”  He added, “The current government has a big problem with the media.” Mr. Belaid had been a Radio Tunisienne program host for nearly four decades before being named general director by the transitional government in January 2011.

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