Dr. Khalid Al-Shafi
More painful than the tragedy that led to the deaths of 13 children out of nineteen people killed in Villaggio Mall, is dealing with the tragedies, calamities, crises, problems, issues, ills and disasters in the community. The biggest loser in this is the media with all its written, video and audio content and it is not a precedent. In every test or real experience, the level of professionalism enjoyed of the media in Qatar is measured. The result has been disappointing and frustrating for three decades till now.
The disastrous incident of mall deepened the crisis of the media and its shallow outputs that focused on covering the inside including the reception and dissemination of celebrative news such as reception of senior officials and farewell to them, interview of ministers and assistants of ambassadors and official visitors of the state, highlighting and praising the role and achievements of the government, semi-government and public and private institutions, commercial companies, companies of private sector, praising, cheering and applauding for some official, public and religious personalities in the absence of any real radical criticism of all the problems of society at political, economic, social, educational, intellectual health and media levels, as well as another list which constitutes the basics of the existence and continuity of the press and media in any society in the world. In every crisis, the large gap in the internal media highlights and it is divided into two types. The media in Qatar and the first Qatari media are like those buildings and institutions engaged in media work through its presence within the community and not necessarily associated with it. The other media lives with the worries, pain, surgery, hopes, sorrows and dreams of the society. It interacts with them, adopts and reflects them in all the coverage, news, articles, investigations and reports.
As was the case in the past, with the ignition of spark of revolutions in Arab streets and the transition to Aljazeera, which is broadcast from Qatar to follow the coverage of events, watch the picture, pictured reports and video clips. We, today in Qatar, tend to follow the social networking sites, e-forums, Facebook and Twitter to follow the news and find out everything with regard to the fire disaster at Villaggio Mall. Strangely, the most famous video on the incident spread widely after it was put on the website of Al-Arabiya channel in Dubai in its report on the incident and it was watched by viewers in the Arab world. The official Qatari television didn’t telecast the events and there was nothing on the website. It kept showing the Arab serials even as thick clouds of smoke covered the sky above its head. The official telecast continued to air songs and dismal local serials and programmes. The wave of gleeful songs did not stop on the isolated broadcast of Voice of the Gulf in sympathy with the lives of 19 victims — 13 children, 4 nannies and 2 civil defence officers, while 17 people were wounded. At that time, the number of casualties was not known. The national newspapers did not activate their websites and did not publish the news whether true or even anticipatory, because the design of many websites of local newspapers does not allow them to publish the interactive news and it belongs to the Middle Ages when you know the world on the Internet revolution in its early stages! Any newspaper or publication did not think of issuing an evening edition or supplementary at the time of the accident, including our Al-Sharq. They waited till the next day in order to publish the repeated news about the incident without media exclusiveness. They didn’t follow those who were killed, who they are, what are their names, how old are they and what was the condition of those who went there. No interview was conducted with their families and relatives. No single newspaper went to the hospital, followed the events and reported the facts. No newspaper met the officials in and outside the compound asked the concerned authorities the questions on the existence of nursery for children in the shopping mall and who was allowed to do so. Why the press waits for the official report from the Interior Ministry and does not work as the Fourth Estate in following up, monitoring, accounting, uncovering, asking questions and providing the information. Al-Watan newspaper described the disaster in the headline as ‘Sad Monday’, which is like the titles given to the tragedy of September 11 in New York, but the one who was following the local media on the day of the disaster will get the impression that everyone was acting like there’s nothing worth following!
Most of the detailed information and humanitarian stories about the victims reached us through the newspapers, remote external media remote, social networking sites and e-mail. The most influential was the report of UK-based newspaper Daily Mail which dealt with details of the stories of victims of the disaster at Villagio Mall with family pictures, names and interviews in addition to the controversial information which is equivalent to all published in the coverage of all the media in Qatar even after the incident on the next day. In order not to derive the truth, the newspaper Al-Raya indicated in its report which is like the blame on everyone and perhaps the blame of the coverage of the same newspaper. The citizens spent 8 complete hours as victims of rumours, rogue news and false information, whereas the truth was absent and all officials escaped from responding to inquiries by citizens and local and international media. The thousands of activists volunteered on social networking sites and took advantage of the case of shock, horror and sadness which seized everyone and promoted the wrong figures about the number of dead and wounded and false information about the circumstances of the accident and its causes. The newspaper added that the fire disaster at Villaggio revealed the separation of Qatar TV from the pulse of the street, and the wait of the official for higher instructions to perform their duty, while the TV was broadcasting programmes talking about the rationalisation of energy consumption and reducing the pollution and beautification of the streets, people followed the details of the incident every moment through the short video clips taken by amateurs and uploaded on YouTube. They were sharing the information, pictures of the victims, rescue operations and eyewitness testimony from the scene on the websites. The newspaper noted that the most basic rules of transparency require not imposing veil of silence on the media on such tragic events. The scenes that were not broadcast on Qatar TV found their way on the TVs of other countries. The information that was not denied after 7 hours of its airing cannot change the impact in the hearts of those who ratified it. The newspaper concluded saying that we kept silence on the causes of fire at markets zone, which swallowed dozens of shops, threatened the lives of hundreds of individuals and caused losses of millions of riyals three years ago, without knowing yet who is responsible and how to ensure that the incident does not recur and the same goes for many of the fires that broke out during the past five years in restaurants, public and private facilities, warehouses of companies, shopping malls, which are dealt by the officials with a lot of uncertainty and little credibility and their files were closed without the announcement of measures to reduce recurrence.
The significant and sad lesson that we have reached today is that the one who leads the link of information, disseminates information and follows the events in society is not the official media with its television channels, radio and Qatar News Agency and not private media, and not even Aljazeera network and its additions, but it is a group of amateurs, some online forums and social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and chat via phones of Apple and the BlackBerry! In conclusion, we can only have mercy on innocent lives lost.
More painful than the tragedy that led to the deaths of 13 children out of nineteen people killed in Villaggio Mall, is dealing with the tragedies, calamities, crises, problems, issues, ills and disasters in the community. The biggest loser in this is the media with all its written, video and audio content and it is not a precedent. In every test or real experience, the level of professionalism enjoyed of the media in Qatar is measured. The result has been disappointing and frustrating for three decades till now.
The disastrous incident of mall deepened the crisis of the media and its shallow outputs that focused on covering the inside including the reception and dissemination of celebrative news such as reception of senior officials and farewell to them, interview of ministers and assistants of ambassadors and official visitors of the state, highlighting and praising the role and achievements of the government, semi-government and public and private institutions, commercial companies, companies of private sector, praising, cheering and applauding for some official, public and religious personalities in the absence of any real radical criticism of all the problems of society at political, economic, social, educational, intellectual health and media levels, as well as another list which constitutes the basics of the existence and continuity of the press and media in any society in the world. In every crisis, the large gap in the internal media highlights and it is divided into two types. The media in Qatar and the first Qatari media are like those buildings and institutions engaged in media work through its presence within the community and not necessarily associated with it. The other media lives with the worries, pain, surgery, hopes, sorrows and dreams of the society. It interacts with them, adopts and reflects them in all the coverage, news, articles, investigations and reports.
As was the case in the past, with the ignition of spark of revolutions in Arab streets and the transition to Aljazeera, which is broadcast from Qatar to follow the coverage of events, watch the picture, pictured reports and video clips. We, today in Qatar, tend to follow the social networking sites, e-forums, Facebook and Twitter to follow the news and find out everything with regard to the fire disaster at Villaggio Mall. Strangely, the most famous video on the incident spread widely after it was put on the website of Al-Arabiya channel in Dubai in its report on the incident and it was watched by viewers in the Arab world. The official Qatari television didn’t telecast the events and there was nothing on the website. It kept showing the Arab serials even as thick clouds of smoke covered the sky above its head. The official telecast continued to air songs and dismal local serials and programmes. The wave of gleeful songs did not stop on the isolated broadcast of Voice of the Gulf in sympathy with the lives of 19 victims — 13 children, 4 nannies and 2 civil defence officers, while 17 people were wounded. At that time, the number of casualties was not known. The national newspapers did not activate their websites and did not publish the news whether true or even anticipatory, because the design of many websites of local newspapers does not allow them to publish the interactive news and it belongs to the Middle Ages when you know the world on the Internet revolution in its early stages! Any newspaper or publication did not think of issuing an evening edition or supplementary at the time of the accident, including our Al-Sharq. They waited till the next day in order to publish the repeated news about the incident without media exclusiveness. They didn’t follow those who were killed, who they are, what are their names, how old are they and what was the condition of those who went there. No interview was conducted with their families and relatives. No single newspaper went to the hospital, followed the events and reported the facts. No newspaper met the officials in and outside the compound asked the concerned authorities the questions on the existence of nursery for children in the shopping mall and who was allowed to do so. Why the press waits for the official report from the Interior Ministry and does not work as the Fourth Estate in following up, monitoring, accounting, uncovering, asking questions and providing the information. Al-Watan newspaper described the disaster in the headline as ‘Sad Monday’, which is like the titles given to the tragedy of September 11 in New York, but the one who was following the local media on the day of the disaster will get the impression that everyone was acting like there’s nothing worth following!
Most of the detailed information and humanitarian stories about the victims reached us through the newspapers, remote external media remote, social networking sites and e-mail. The most influential was the report of UK-based newspaper Daily Mail which dealt with details of the stories of victims of the disaster at Villagio Mall with family pictures, names and interviews in addition to the controversial information which is equivalent to all published in the coverage of all the media in Qatar even after the incident on the next day. In order not to derive the truth, the newspaper Al-Raya indicated in its report which is like the blame on everyone and perhaps the blame of the coverage of the same newspaper. The citizens spent 8 complete hours as victims of rumours, rogue news and false information, whereas the truth was absent and all officials escaped from responding to inquiries by citizens and local and international media. The thousands of activists volunteered on social networking sites and took advantage of the case of shock, horror and sadness which seized everyone and promoted the wrong figures about the number of dead and wounded and false information about the circumstances of the accident and its causes. The newspaper added that the fire disaster at Villaggio revealed the separation of Qatar TV from the pulse of the street, and the wait of the official for higher instructions to perform their duty, while the TV was broadcasting programmes talking about the rationalisation of energy consumption and reducing the pollution and beautification of the streets, people followed the details of the incident every moment through the short video clips taken by amateurs and uploaded on YouTube. They were sharing the information, pictures of the victims, rescue operations and eyewitness testimony from the scene on the websites. The newspaper noted that the most basic rules of transparency require not imposing veil of silence on the media on such tragic events. The scenes that were not broadcast on Qatar TV found their way on the TVs of other countries. The information that was not denied after 7 hours of its airing cannot change the impact in the hearts of those who ratified it. The newspaper concluded saying that we kept silence on the causes of fire at markets zone, which swallowed dozens of shops, threatened the lives of hundreds of individuals and caused losses of millions of riyals three years ago, without knowing yet who is responsible and how to ensure that the incident does not recur and the same goes for many of the fires that broke out during the past five years in restaurants, public and private facilities, warehouses of companies, shopping malls, which are dealt by the officials with a lot of uncertainty and little credibility and their files were closed without the announcement of measures to reduce recurrence.
The significant and sad lesson that we have reached today is that the one who leads the link of information, disseminates information and follows the events in society is not the official media with its television channels, radio and Qatar News Agency and not private media, and not even Aljazeera network and its additions, but it is a group of amateurs, some online forums and social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and chat via phones of Apple and the BlackBerry! In conclusion, we can only have mercy on innocent lives lost.
