Murder makes US headline news

VIRGINIA - Bahij Chaalan

February 2005

Media in the United States covered the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri extensively, shedding more light on this event than other turning points in the Middle East history such as the death of PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian elections and the first Iraqi free elections.

Hariri’s death, Syrian-Lebanese relations and American-Syrian relations took a significant share of each and every show on major networks since the explosion on Feb. 14.

Pictures of the explosion and the burial headed the front pages of main newspapers in the country such as The New York Times and The Washington Post. Major newspapers kept publishing follow up articles and commentaries for the following week.

In one week, the number of television reports, newspaper articles and commentaries exceeded in quantity the coverage of Syrian-Lebanese relations that took place in years. Even the quality of the coverage was significant. Newspapers and television stations ran in-depth stories on the historical relations between Syria and Lebanon, the Taef Accord, the Lebanese sectarian regime and Syria’s support for Hizbullah and “terrorism.” 

Local channels such as CBS, CNN, FOX News and NBC, rarely cover events of little relevance to domestic issues. Even the war on Iraq is covered here from a domestic angle.

Local networks run stories on the number of casualties, the needs of the army, the war budget and the progress of spreading democracy, which is also considered related to domestic news after it became widely understood in the US that establishing democracies in the Middle East constituted the only tool to prevent terrorist attacks against the homeland similar to the attacks on September 11, 2001.

The coverage of Hariri’s assassination followed the same guidelines. It was regarded as a turning point in American-Syrian relations.

Five days after the assassination, headlines on major news networks read the following: “US military could conduct Iraqi-Syrian raids,” “Tension mounts between US and Syria” and “US military is already involved in planning.”

Prior to the attack on Hariri, media in the US hardly ever covered talks of military action against Syria, though senior White House and State Department officials were never short of showing discontent or “worries” toward the Syrian Baathist regime.

Most networks went farther and criticized the Bush Administration for being lenient in dealing with the issue. CNN said in almost every related report that the Bush Administration “fell short” of publicly accusing Syria of being the mastermind of the plot.

Newsmakers in the US chose the angle of coverage according to the potential development of a certain story, hence, reports on the government’s reaction to the assassination of Hariri were presented from the State Department, the White House, and significantly enough, the Pentagon.

CNN’s Pentagon reporter Barbara Starr carried out live updates on almost all prime time shows such as 360 with Anderson Cooper, Paula Zahn Now and Wolf Blitzer Reports.

Fox News aired live interviews with dozens of American and Arab analysts to comment on the political aftermath of the assassination and the role the US could play in pushing Syria out of Lebanon.

Talks about an expected US intervention, whether military or through diplomatic pressure and additional sanctions under the Syrian Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act, constituted the focal point of the interviews. Analysts were given a wide part of airtime to discuss the various possibilities posed after the death of Hariri.

News networks also highlighted the improvement in relations between the US and European countries on this issue after the polarity in the stances regarding the war on Iraq.

Some reports on major channel discussed a potential military alliance between the US and France if they were out of options other than acting militarily. 

The driving force behind this distinctive media coverage in the US was not based on officials’ stances and explicit statements, yet, the news headlines’ message implicitly underlined that Lebanese-Syrian-American relations might constitute the next focal point of community related news.