Jaber Al Harami
After 34 years of the formation of Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), the Gulf media remains less cooperative and less connected within itself. It gets rapidly affected by the political atmosphere that has shaken the pillars of the media system, just like any other sector.
However, media is also influenced by public opinion, which may create either convergence or congestion.
When I say that the Gulf media needs realistic reassessment, I do not exclude a particular field, whether it is television, radio or print, in addition to social media, which has become a fertile ground and an open sky for whoever wants to act positively or negatively.
Today, in light of these challenges that the GCC faces and the risks surrounding it, we lack a clear strategy for the Gulf media that deals with events of the council, without excluding any medium.
We lose sight of the realistic solutions of the crises which we are exposed to from time to time. What are usually achieved on the ground are merely individual judgments of media organisations from each country, with no prior planning, or a clear vision to address attacks on GCC countries.
With tight arrangement and continuous cooperation, western media exchanges roles in campaigning against our countries while we are watching; being unable to openly address such systematic attacks on our Gulf. The reason behind that is our disorganisation, as we do not have a strategy, clear vision, and crisis management.
What is more is how our meetings are open-ended, even in the press and media institutions. Why we do not let the media organisations and professionals in different sectors work without any political influence when they have different point of views on issues within the region or outside?
Why do we pull these differences — not disputes — down from the “top of the pyramid” to the lower sectors, which would affect the performance of all institutions, not just the media?
Ten years before the launch of the GCC, there was close cooperation in the field of information and even media between the Gulf countries, exchanging visits between media experts and establishing joint activities at the Gulf, Arab and international levels.
However, such activities have almost totally disappeared; we no longer see joint programmes, even those targeting children as a main audience. We rarely find mutual visits between media professionals; lots of media work that was going on in the Gulf arena is now “extinct”, at a time when we desperately need it.
Today, we are in need of responsible Gulf media, but this can only come through genuine cooperation beyond differences of views that may appear from time to time, in order to put the supreme interest of the Gulf entity and its citizens ahead of us.
I am pressing on the fact that we are all targeted; we must be well aware of this fact. Media organisations and experts of all sectors in the Gulf must re-evaluate the march of the Gulf media outlets and look forward to the future with a different vision that rises to the magnitude of the challenges we face.
Our media organisations in the Gulf should be more responsible in order to strengthen the GCC progression, push for greater and broader integration, and strengthen the existing interconnection through cooperation between all Gulf countries.
We are all one family and what threatens one country threatens us all. Any attack in one country would immediately have repercussions on the neighbour. Therefore, we must address such issues by standing together as one entity, one voice, and one hand.
