Dogmatic Worldview

Politics: Iraq election Dogmatic worldview European media doubt the the election was a decision on political objectives: “In view of daily threats, kidnappings, bombs and legitimacy of the election in Iraq murders, the interest in election programs is low. (…) It won’t be posters that decide this election, he day after the elections in Iraq, the Euro- but rather fear.” T pean media rejoiced: “Millions of Iraqis defy Meanwhile, readers and viewers of Arab media terrorism”, was the cover story of the Frankfurter received a totally different picture of the situation Rundschau on January 31st, 2005. The headlines in Iraq. 71% of all statements on the legitimacy of of Süddeutsche Zeitung, Handelsblatt, Libéra- the ballot vote contained positive evaluations. tion, Independent and Financial Times read The TV station Al-Alam, for example, showed similarly, while the Guardian commented on its a report on January 19th about demonstrations in cover page: “Iraq welcomes the brave new world Basra, where thousands of Iraqis took to the streets of democracy.” for the elections to be organized on schedule. On the same day, the daily newspaper Al-Hayat quot- Many readers and viewers may have been sur- prised by those headlines: Only two weeks before 1 Different evaluation the election, the European media had severely questioned its legitimacy and secure organization. 100% They did this in opposition to their colleagues at Arab media organizations, such as Al Jazeera, Al 80% Arabiyah and Al-Hayat, who clearly portrayed the validity of the election more positively. This is 60% the result of a Media Tenor analysis of the coverage on the Iraq election in 40 opinion forming 40% media from Germany, France, Great Britain, Italy 20% and Spain, as well as twelve Arab television stations and newspapers in the period between Janu- 0% ary 16th and 30th, 2005. 100% European media were primarily guided by the security situation, from which they inferred the 80% degree of legitimacy of the elections in Iraq: 68% of the statements on the election were ambivalent- 60% skeptical to negative during the fi rst week of the analysis (see graph 1). 40% Peter Münch, for example, wrote on January 20th in the Süddeutsche Zeitung: The war lie is 20% followed by the democracy lie.” And the Guard- 0% ian predicted a day after that the elections would be tainted by a severe lack of security, participa- 100% tion and transparency. 80% German public television news, in particular, negative ambivalent suggested through their news selection that the 60% parliamentary elections in Iraq would neither take neutral positive place on the scheduled date, nor properly fulfi l 40% their function. In the week from January 16th un- til 21st, the television news magazine heute jour- 12 Arab media20% ZDF heute journal 22 European media nal passed a negative judgment in three quarters of all cases, when the legitimacy of the election 0% was at stake. Looking at the attacks in Iraq, the magazine’s Statements on the legitimacy of the election 01/16-01/21/2005 Source: Media Tenor Basis: 54/6/74 statements on anchor, Marietta Slomka, wondered in her lead-in 01/16 – 01/21/2005 the legitimacy of the election on January 19th: “How can free, equal and universal elections be held under such circumstances?” ed the Kurdish President of the Iraqi parliament, The correspondent Luc Walpot, in the subsequent Fouad Masoum, who announced a peaceful coop- news piece, even raised doubts on the premise that eration of the different Iraqi parties after the elec- 8 Media Tenor Quarterly Journal 1/2005 MMTi0105_0810f.inddTi0105_0810f.indd 2 118.05.20058.05.2005 110:52:050:52:05 Politics: Iraq election tions and promised democracy and freedom. the Arab media gave a much greater platform to On frequent occasions exiled Iraqis voiced their Iraqis themselves, whether politicians or common opinion, saying that the election was a great hope citizens. Graph 3 shows that statements on the for the future, such as in the news program of the election made by Iraqis were just as frequent as Hisbollah television station, Al-Manar, on Janu- those made by the journalists themselves. ary 17th. TV stations repeatedly aired appeals by In the European media, that relation was 1:3 be- Iraqi politicians, who called for the citizens of fore the election. The heute journal did quote Iraqi Iraq to take part in the elections. sources more often before the election, but those While the European media primarily based tended to transmit skeptical messages. For in- their judgment on violence and terror, Arab jour- stance, two Iraqi voters complained that they did nalists drew a detailed image of the situation. Not not know who was running for the elections. In only was the legitimacy of the election addressed any event, they said, most of the politicians were more often, but also doubted less. Coverage was exiled Iraqis, who had come from abroad and did more diverse: Al Jazeera and the other eleven not know the real problems in the country. 2 Change in evaluation Mood swing in the election week During election week, the tone in Europe’s me- 100% dia changed suddenly and noticeably (see graph 2). This transformation was especially obvious in 80% the news of the German public television stations. In the week between January 23rd and 30th, two 60% thirds of all statements on the legitimacy of the elections in Iraq were positive in the news maga- 40% zines heute journal and Tagesthemen. ARD and ZDF thereby seemed to have ad- 20% opted the assessment of the Arab TV stations and 0% newspapers that continued to report positively on the election (53% positive statements on the le- 100% gitimacy). The switch in ARD and ZDF cover- 80% age coincided with a clear increase in the share of Iraqi sources: During the second week of analysis, 60% almost half of all statements (46.6%) were given by Iraqis. ARD/ZDF 40% Was public television simply unable to ignore objective reality? Even European journalists 20% could no longer turn a blind eye to the fact that a large part of the Iraqi population was longing for 0% democratic elections and was determined to defy 100% all threats. On January 27th, the heute journal anchor 80% negative ambivalent Klaus-Peter Siegloch still wondered in his lead- 60% neutral in: “How can you organize universal, free and fair positive elections in a country, where even the walk to the 40% polling station may mean death?” But in the sub- 12 Arab mediasequent 22 European media report many Kurdish Iraqis were quoted, 20% who all welcomed the elections and had great hopes for freedom and democracy. One Kurdish 0% woman called the elections, which she “will cer- tainly participate in”, the “most important elec- Statements on the legitimacy of the election 01/23-01/30/2005 tions of all time.” Source: Media Tenor Basis: 425/33/74 statements on 01/23 – 01/30/2005 the legitimacy of the election Coverage in the ARD Tagesthemen turned out to be similar. Its anchor Thomas Roth fi rst pointed Arab print and TV media studied, addressed the out that Islamic fundamentalists would try to kill political objectives of parties, the campaign and all voters. But the report itself presented almost ex- the citizens’ viewpoints in great detail. Moreover, clusively joyful and happy exiled Iraqis, who had Media Tenor Quarterly Journal 1/2005 9 MMTi0105_0810f.inddTi0105_0810f.indd 3 118.05.20058.05.2005 110:53:180:53:18 Politics: Iraq election tears in their eyes, because they were fi nally able people, it was the Arab journalists who proved to to cast their votes in Berlin after sometimes long their European colleagues that it is possible to do journeys from Prague, Warsaw and Budapest. The it differently – the same ones who had also been overwhelming majority of positive statements on strictly opposed to the war. rb the legitimacy of the election were given by Iraqi voters. Journalists at ARD and ZDF, however, re- mained skeptical. 3 On January 29th, the day before the election, Close-up: Arab media gave the Tagesthemen anchor Anne Will described the Iraqis broader platform atmosphere in Baghdad as one where part of the population would abstain from voting for fear of terror attacks, while others rejected the elections as not free. On the same day, Stefan Hallman 26,3 speculated in the heute journal that the elections in Kirkuk might open up a new front in the vio- 73,7 lence. Other European media transmitted a similar im- 01/16 –01/21 age. The fact that almost 40% of the statements on 51,1 legitimacy were positive during the election week was primarily due to Iraqis, who were quoted on 48,9 the matter. On January 24th, the Independent predicted that the new government would not be 32,8 legitimate in the eyes of Iraqis, because it would 67,2 be dependent on US occupation. The same edition, however, disproved that statement by publishing 01/23.–01/30 an opinion poll among Iraqis: 10 out of 13 Iraqi 48,7 citizens, who had been willing to back up their 51,3 statements with their photographs, welcomed the elections and expressed their hope that they would help defeat the terror and restore peace and stabil- ity. The European media representatives were ob- viously entirely mistaken about the mood within Sources of assessments on the election the Iraqi population. This also becomes evident in Source: Media Tenor Basis: 118/235//758/532 statements on the legitimacy, the choice of external commentators. On January 01/16 – 01/30/2005 voter turnout or security aspects of the Iraq election 27th, the Italian newspaper La Repubblica quoted the American Bush-opponent George Soros as saying that the election was transformed into Basis: a civil war and that it did not serve democracy.

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