http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=22055_LGF_Exclusive-_How_Much_Does_It_Cost_to_Buy_Global_TV_News&only
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A Separate Service for Arab States
However, there is another significant part of their business model that affects the rest of the business. While most of the world takes news pictures with minimal interpretation beyond editing, the Arab Gulf States have asked for and receive a different and far more expensive service. These states pay for a complete news report service including full editing and voice overs from known journalists. The news organizations in the Arab countries don’t do anything (beyond verify that they are appropriate for local tastes) before broadcast.
What this means is that while there are around 50 people producing news pictures for the whole world working in Camden at any time, there are a further 50 Arabic speaking staff producing finished stories exclusively for the Arab states of the gulf. This has a tremendous effect on the whole feel of the building as these two teams feed pictures and people back and forth and sit in adjacent work areas. The slant of the stories required by the Gulf States has a definite effect on which footage is used and discarded. This affects both the Gulf newsroom and the main global newsroom.
This full service feed is much more expensive for the customers than the usual service, but it is also much higher margin for APTN. This is partly because there is great commonality in what they can send to most of the Gulf States taking this service: stories are made once and used in a number of countries.
Disproportionately Negative Coverage of Israel
Anything involving Israel is a favorite with Gulf Arab states for showing to their viewers. Could this be the reason why Israel receives such a disproportionate amount of particularly negative coverage especially and increasingly ever since the early 1970’s? HonestReporting is usually unable to decide which is most biased: AP or BBC. As the BBC is often using APTN footage, the difference is minor. A significant twist to what is seen, concerns what is not seen. Footage such as the Palestinian mob joyfully lynching two Israeli reservists in Ramallah in October 2000 is held by APTN’s library: any attempt to license this film for reshow is carefully vetted. Requests for the use of “sensitive clips” are referred directly to the Library director. This is not the case with clips that paint Israel in a bad light. Likewise, the re-showing of Palestinian celebrations on 9/11 is considered “sensitive”.
The way in which raw footage such as APTN’s is compiled into a news report and sent round the world has also been analyzed. The Second Draft gives a comprehensive view of how editing can make all the difference. APTN is the gatekeeper that sits between you and the actual event. You will never see what the editors at APTN see before they compile your evening news. What do you think is cut out?
The Wrap-Up
Was this organization set up with this in-built bias on purpose? Is there some way that the expensive payments made by Gulf state governments form part of a deliberate attempt to skew the media?
In “Islam and Dhimmitude” (2002) by Bat Ye’or on p294-296 she recounts how decisions were taken in the wake of the Arab-Israeli war of 1967 to try to put across an anti-Jewish, anti-Zionist message. Successive conferences resolved to contribute vast sums “to universities, centers for Islamic studies, international communications agencies, and private and governmental organizations in order to win over world opinion.” (p296).
The messages from these conferences stressed an addition to the more familiar violent jihad: they also emphasized the importance of jihad by the written and spoken word—what we would recognize as classic propaganda. Without question APTN’s interesting business model represents a concrete example of an ongoing financial “contribution” to an important communication agency promoting a pro-Arab bias.
About the anti-Israel bias of BBC's Orla Guerin.
Blog: "drinkingfromhome"
http://drinkingfromhome.blogspot.com/2006/08/orla-guerin-busted.html
Orla Guerin - Busted!
Two reports from Bint Jbeil from yesterday's news, one from Orla Guerin on the BBC (watch the full report here**) and the other from Alex Thomson on Channel 4 News (click here to view. Window Media Player only. 2 mins in.) (Added emphasis mine in all spoken extracts)
etc.
Originally posted by ivanhoeAs you'd expect, no one bothered to put these claims to APTN. But what exactly are the claims? The Gulf states service, MECC, sends as many reporters as it has clients to particular jobs. They tailor their editing to the client and do not tag their reports as APTN reports. The main Global APTN operation is separate, and US owned. It lives or dies by its reputation for accuracy and fairness.
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=22055_LGF_Exclusive-_How_Much_Does_It_Cost_to_Buy_Global_TV_News&only
" ........................."
A Separate Service for Arab States
However, there is another significant part of their business model that affects the rest of the business. While most of the world takes news pictures with minimal interp ...[text shortened]... going financial “contribution” to an important communication agency promoting a pro-Arab bias.
Here are some quotes by one of the MECC editors:
http://www.tbsjournal.com/Archives/Fall01/mecc.htm
Each channel gets a different reporter so if all of our clients want to cover the same story, which in stories like Jerusalem is a daily phenomenon, then each gets a different report done by a different on-camera correspondent from our Jerusalem bureau.
Yes, because in this service we are not representing APTN and its news values, which is the case with our global news coverage, which take and use as they want but they don't dictate the terms. But in this service, which is customized, we are serving in each case the particular channel and its values. It's a client-driven service, so we must be responsive to client concerns. It isn't a global service, and the reporters, while paid and directed by APTN, do not attribute their reports to APTN; they are surrogate correspondents for Saudi TV, Kuwaiti TV, and our other clients.
Saudi TV has many restrictions which have to be taken into consideration, editorially and in production. You cannot, for example, mention Hizballah in any Saudi report, but you can do as many reports as you like on the Lebanese resistance (muqawama)—and these are in fact Hizballah operations by and large. The name "Hizballah" which is so clearly associated with Shi'ism and Iran is unacceptable.
Here's something interesting on the kind of people who read and contribute to littlegreenfootballs. Not that they would skew their "reports" for their audience, of course...
http://www.drmenlo.com/lgfquiz/
The Guerin thing is being looked at by the BBC. Not to mention the untouched suburbs was a pretty poor piece of journalism, in my opinion, and the claim she had not seen a building that was not destroyed was clearly disingenuous. But lets remember that the claim that the whole of the main town was flattened seems to be true. That is important, is it not?
Originally posted by ivanhoeI think everyone accepts that Hezbollah try to use the media. They are hardly alone in that respect.
If there are any people left who do not believe that Hezbollah has a sophisticated propaganda policy they can check out this site:
http://www.seprin.com/menu/hezbollah/index.htm
I don't read Spanish, but who is Seprin?
http://argentina.indymedia.org/news/2004/09/220887.php