Arab Media & Society

It is perhaps ironic that the man who controlled the broadcast of his image with an iron grip was executed in one of the most widely watched news events of recent times.

But then you could say his last 14 months alive were one long television performance. Although Saddam Hussein’s trial for killing 148 Iraqi Shi’as from the village of Dujail dragged on a grueling 14 months, it actually made for a stunning courtroom drama: a once-powerful dictator is pulled from a hole in the ground looking as dismal as can be imagined; he is interrogated, checked for fleas and bite-sized weapons of mass destruction; then spruced up for his post-captivity television debut only to be sentenced to death some months later.

Throughout the course of the trial, unique characters came and went—some of them judges and lawyers who disappeared because they were either fed up, afraid for their lives or killed; witnesses who more often than not hid behind a curtain in fear of facing the once-ruthless so-called “Butcher of Baghdad”; and alleged accomplices who shouted, boycotted and even went on hunger strikes.  As for the lead character, he almost always gave a stellar performance.  He would constantly threaten boycotts, hunger strikes, not to mention retribution.  On more than one occasion he even shouted defiantly that he remained the rightfully elected leader of Iraq.  Occasionally, his outbursts received a tracked package on Western networks, but for the most part the day-to-day of the trial received less than a minute of coverage. 

But despite his courtroom antics, Saddam Hussein’s execution had the potential of being a far bigger blockbuster than his trial or sentencing.  The build-up prior to the actual execution date was significant—both in America and in the Arab world.  Networks on both sides of the Atlantic wrangled with questions of ethics leading up to his December 30, 2006 hanging as to what could and what could not be shown on television.  The scrutiny was different for both camps.  Western networks simply sought to show enough of the final moments of Saddam Hussein’s life to captivate viewers without offending them.  Middle Eastern networks—particularly those catering to primarily Iraqi audiences—had to prepare for repercussions of a quite different order.   So they treaded carefully, attempting to show just enough footage to convince people that he was dead without further inciting sectarian tensions.

The fact is no one really knew what kind of actual footage would be released following the execution.  US and Iraqi officials were assuring the media that Saddam Hussein would be executed before the New Year.  However, to many that seemed unlikely.  But they were wrong. It was dawn in Baghdad on the first day of the Muslim feast of Eid Al Adha, December 30 2006, and just past 10pm on the American East Coast at the heart of the New Year’s weekend, when Saddam Hussein was executed.  The timing was inopportune for most Western networks and so little was afforded in coverage upon first word of the hanging.  Incidentally, American networks had poured their resources into a week’s worth of coverage following the death of former President Gerald Ford whose funeral had been earlier that same day. 

However, in a globalized world timing matters little.  Anyone with Internet access (or TiVo digital video recording) who wanted to watch the execution could take part in a global forum of opinion and could see coverage of the events.  Hussein’s death, as compared to the death last year of another so-called butcher Slobodan Milosevic, sparked sensationalist responses around the globe.  Because Milosevic died suddenly of apparent heart failure in a Hague prison while awaiting sentencing for crimes against humanity there is no telling what level of media attention his death may have prompted had he actually been sentenced to death like Saddam Hussein. 

If mainstream media were to learn one thing from the execution aftermath, it was this: they are no longer in the reporting game alone.  The role of citizen journalists had never been so prominent as in the coverage of Saddam Hussein’s demise. Despite efforts—or alleged efforts as the case may be—to secure the premises of the execution so as to prevent leaked footage, international audiences witnessed—many for the first time—a capital punishment online. 

Certainly, the outbreak of videophone footage of Saddam Hussein’s execution poses a new set of questions for reporters and Internet users alike about the ethical codes of news dissemination and consumption.  But what may be remembered longer is that from Minnesota to Manila, public opinion addressing the execution and its coverage exploded onto the World Wide Web giving anyone with Internet access the opportunity to take part in history.

“We aren’t going to get these images and just slap them on TV”

Arab networks certainly did not let this opportunity for competitive coverage pass them by. In fact almost all of them invested heavy airtime on the action in the rolling-coverage approach which has become characteristic of modern television news.  The primary source about the events that took place on the morning of December 30^th was to be Iraq’s state-run network, Al Iraqiya.  Curiously, it was not Al Iraqiya who broke the news of the execution on the Arab end, but rather two networks—Alhurra and Al Arabiya—who were reportedly the first to officially confirm that Hussein was, in fact, dead.   

This raises questions as to who was calling the shots that early morning in Baghdad since Alhurra is a US government-funded, Arabic-language network, and Al Arabiya is owned by America’s top Gulf ally—Saudi Arabia.  “It is very ironic,” believes Ibrahim Saleh, a professor of Journalism at the American University in Cairo.  “It is either something is wrong or it confirms the conspiracy theory.  It confirms that everyone is taking sides.”  

Al Arabiya’s Washington Bureau Chief Hisham Milhem disagrees with this theory, saying that the two networks were one-up on their competitors simply due to a strong presence in Iraq.  “We have a very large bureau in Iraq and we are the Arab satellite that is watched most by Iraqis after the local Iraqi station,” he says.  “We paid a heavy price for this coverage; some of our staff were deliberately killed in the violence.  Alhurra also has a large bureau in Iraq [so] it’s not such a surprise that we were able to break the news first.”

Al Arabiya, in fact, confirmed the news via Hussein's lawyer, one of the network’s many contacts in Baghdad, according to Melhem.  Shortly after Alhurra and Al Arabiya reported the news, a news ticker scrolled across the bottom of the screen on Iraq’s Al Iraqiya that read in Arabic: "Saddam's execution marks the end of a dark period of Iraq's history." A presenter then announced, "Criminal Saddam was hanged to death.” 

It took some three to four hours before official photographs were released by the Iraqi government of Hussein’s corpse in a shroud.  Thereafter, Arab networks began rolling video of Hussein’s final moments, showing official government-supervised video of the final moments of the former dictator’s life just before the trap door dropped from underneath his feet.

“It was unfortunately one of the times that the Arab media was not trying to put a slant on things,” says Saleh.  “It was a very provocative time for Arabs—not just Muslims—and seen as a pride issue.”

“He was not trembling or in a state of panic as some Iraqi officials claimed him to be before the videos were released,” notes Melhem, adding that Hussein “became a sort of victim or martyr, appearing more dignified than his executioner.”