Find Out Despite Biased Reporting

Since the arrival of satellite television we are able to view a wide range of news channels such as the BBC or German, French and Italian satellite TV stations, as well as many Arabic channels including Al Jazeera, Al Arabia, MBC, in addition to specific groups running their own broadcast channels such as Al Manar or NBC.


If you are lucky to speak more than one language, it will probably strike you that the reporting on some news channels can be extremely biased. However biased the reporting, it doesn't have to have a very bad effect if the viewer is able to watch a wide range of international channels to receive information from different angles. Unbalanced reporting is like unbalanced food, it is not good for us. What strikes me the most is that on some Western news channels no one seems to be interested in how the people of a conflict region think of their own situation and how they feel about what is happening to them. The reporting is so abstract and undermined with an opinion from one side of the conflict, that the pictures often don't match the information given. One example is the terrible humanitarian crisis in Gaza that has been going on for weeks.


If we want to avoid making up our mind based on potential biased reporting, we should not depend on one national source of information. No reporting can be totally unbiased, even if it attempts to be so, because reporters are influenced by their national specific education, training, culture, traditions, attitudes and convictions. But in times of the Internet and satellite technology people are able to receive a broad range of information on any subject and they should use it in order to obtain an informed opinion.


Unfortunately, the reputation of some particular Arabic TV channels is based on prejudiced information without any founded knowledge. But should someone prejudice the objectivity and dispassion of the Arabic press before even having collected more information about it? By now there are many Arabic satellite channels with Websites (in English and many other languages) where one can take a look at different views from another perspective. Even if Western viewers might probably find reason for criticism and disagreement, I can still promise that s/he will benefit from some interesting information and fascinating knowledge that might at least encourage some to question a few obsolete but widely held opinions about Arabs or Muslims. One important piece of information for many Western viewers may be that Al-Jazeera is not an extremist Arab or Muslim satellite channel, but that most of its English version's presenters and reporters have previously worked for the BBC.


My personal hope is to improve the understanding between the two worlds by looking at events from the other side's perspective. Western channels are at least widely viewed in the Middle East, which is more than one can say about Western viewers' habits. The knowledge about other people and their lives, customs, hopes, problems, worries and fears is the first step towards a mutual understanding (connecting between knowledge and reason), which is, of course, a fundamental basis for peace.


Despite the existing knowledge about Muslims living in the West and an initial multi-cultural euphoria in Europe, it is vital to get to know the people from other cultures and religions beyond their delicious cooking and colourful fashion. Factual criticism must be allowed but tolerance for different ways of living and views should not be sacrificed in this process. This is the only way to counter wrong perceptions and prejudice of strange cultures in order to make the first steps towards a genuine understanding between nations. Maybe one day we will be able to achieve what the famous German writer and poet Friedrich Schiller (in "About Poverty and Dignity" 1793) had already recognized long ago: "An enemy merely beaten can rise again, but the one reconciled has truly been vanquished."