Al Arabiya
When it comes to terrorist attacks, mainstream news media tend to be guided by official accounts—be it in the Arab world, the United States or in Europe. But covering the recent bombing that occurred in Morocco’s tourism hub city of Marrakesh, there was a discernible effort in local media coverage toward analysis.
The media tackled difficult questions about why the bloodshed happened. One key question that the media raised: Whose interests were served by the café blast?
Government fingers pointed to Al-Qaeda as the suspected mastermind of the attack, which killed 16 people, but voices in the news media, primarily in the electronic and printed press, exercised caution not to be dragged into misleading the public by presenting an official version of a story. The media noted that the blast was still under investigation by US, French and Spanish intelligence services.
In part, the caution displayed in the local media coverage was likely a result of early reports from Egypt two months ago that now-jailed former Interior Minister Habib el-Adly had a hand in last New Year’s Eve bombing of al-Qiddissin Church in Alexandria in which 24 people were killed. The report was unsubstantiated.
Another explanation of the Moroccan media’s more thoughtful approach to coverage of the blast could lie in the timing of the attack. Morocco has witnessed in the past three months growing public discontent with the government and widely expressed anger at “symbols of corruption,” such as some friends of King Mohammad VI.
One of the most popular independent news websites in Morocco, www.hespress.com, has said that “the terrorist bombing in Marrakesh has taken the reform process into a new stage because of the challenges it raised, requiring a cautious and responsible approach to dealing with the consequences of this attack.”
“The party behind the attack—be it foreign or domestic—has put several goals, first of which was to obstruct political progress in Morocco,” the website said.
Another likely reason why journalists this time appeared to be writing outside the orbit of government influence was the detention of Al-Massae newspaper’s executive editor Rachid Nini on the eve of the Marrakesh bombing. Several journalists and human rights activists recently organized a sit-in in front of the parliament to demand Mr. Nini’s release and demand more press freedom. It just so happened that the day happened to be last Thursday, the day of the attack on the café in Marrakesh.
Could it be that the news media in some countries not yet affected by popular uprisings are seeking to break free of their long-time obsequious coverage in order to avoid the embarrassing situation of waking up one day and finding one’s sacred cows gone?
(Published in english.alarabiya.net in 01 May 2011)
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