Death of Moammar Gaddafi: Media Around the World

By: Chao Yang, Hui Li, Shoichi Nakayama 

    Moammar Gaddafi, the "dictator" of Libya, was captured and killed in October 2011. In our project we will carefully study the presentation and representation of the news regarding this subject. We found out news reports from around the world, .... compared and contrasted the positions of each media. 

WSJ, Oct 21 2011

Wall Street Journal: The American Position                                                         --- by Hui

Two whole pages of the leading national newspaper were dedicated, on Friday October 21^st, to this subject. There was a horizontal panel across the top of the two pages which contains a short biography of Moammar Gaddafi, called “Libyan Leader Moammar Gadhafi’s Long Reign”. Important years in the colonel’s 69 years of life were mentioned. But when I close examine the dates involved, I found out that all the milestones mentioned were negative aspects of his life and his ruling of Libya, without mentioning any good things that he had done for his country. This one-sidedness can also be seen in the articles following. The article on which I will focus my discussion is called ‘Eccentric and Brutal, He Met End as a Fugitive”.

The main news report in this incident utilized strong words in the title – “eccentric”, “brutal”, and “fugitive”. Such modifier can also been seen throughout the report, such as “outcast”, “mad dog”, and “flamboyant”. A large, colored picture of the colonel, in his military uniform and medals, with an indifferent look on his face, was printed at the center of the page, occupying almost one fifth of the page. Another second-large picture on the opposite page showed exciting Libyans smiling and waving their national flags on the street celebrating Gaddafi’s death. The articles were certainly in a pro-American (or anti-Gaddafi) position, clearly stated the position of the Obama government – Gaddafi is a dictator and is now dead for his own good. The report started with the only interview with a Libyan – “This is the greatest moment for Libya. The criminal is dead to us and to history.” Attitude from other countries, such as the Middle East, was merely mentioned along with the process of capture of the colonel. A biography of Gaddafi occupied most of the article, from the time he seized power from the King, to one year before when the United Nation (UN) called the arrest of Gaddafi by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). He was described as a leader not ruling the country by his wisdom and foresight but by his “idiosyncratic cult of personality”. He has absolute power over the country and had a specially-trained bodyguard escort. The whole article refrained from talking about Gaddafi’s attempts to increase the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the country, and other countries’ position on his death. The only positions mentioned were that from president Obama (“one of the world’s longest-serving dictators is no more”) and that from the Libyans. This is certainly a neutral report of the incident, more like propaganda for the government, justifying the capture, (possibly) torture and killing of Gaddafi.

Other news sources such as the Huffington Post (US edition) also depicted Gaddafi's death as a triumph for the Libyans. In the article Gaddafi was described as a "mercurial" leader who was "toppled by his own people". He even plead for mercy when the soldiers captured him. I can sense the sarcasm of the author in the article. The rest of the article was all written in a very subjective point of view, based on the assumption that Gaddafi was nothing but a cruel ruler of Libya. 

References: 

The Wall Street Journal, paper edition, Friday October 21, 2001, A8 and A9.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/20/muammar-gaddafi-dead-libya_n_1021843.html

People's Daily: The Chinese Position                                                                  --- by Chao

I am in charge of the Chinese news part of our group and I searched the most influential newspaper media, the People’s Daily, as the main resource for the news about Gaddafi’s death. It is published on Friday, October 21th, which is the second day after his death. It does not illustrate a lot about Gaddafi’s death--more accurately, about Gaddafi himself. Instead, it focuses much more to the result that Gaddafi got arrested; the situation about the war happened that day and some analysis about the future of Libya. There is a picture showing that people as the opposition party were celebrating Gaddafi’s death. The man who holds the gun claimed that the gun was owned to Gaddafi himself and he took it after his death. As you can see from the picture below, there are not too much images (Actually, only one image), words and testimonies originally. Most of the passage said the words are from local Medias. It seems that the People’s Daily makes its attitude more neutral than supportive or opposed.

Then I turn to some other Medias online for reference. What surprises me is that almost every website has its own special report about Gaddafi, from the beginning of the war to the death of Gaddafi, which could be treated as the end of this event. Most of them make columns showing different facts of this event: the news about situations in Libya, the media’s critics, the attitude of China and other countries, related pictures and videos. But it is interesting that I can hardly find any articles or even materials which reveal the detailed information of his death like how he was killed. And most of these websites have an articled named the significance of Gaddafi’s death while you can find nothing which really matters after you click the title of that passage. Also, there is a video which is less than 5 minutes showing Gaddafi’s 42 years of his political life. Unfortunately, what I get from that video is just that period of history without any comments or direction of public opinion.

It is kind of upset that I have no idea about where this information comes from after reading them. Like what I mentioned before, most of the words are said to be quoted from so-called “local media”. Questions come up to my mind like which media we quoted from, how local is the local one, who made this testimony, what kind of information or values could be translated accurately, why choose such a view or rhetoric to describe the news, etc.

Before I closed that page with all my doubts, I caught a sight of something interesting. It seems that the position which Chinese government takes changed as the event changed, though very slightly. From the time chart we can see that China did not want to take sanctions at the early stage of the Libya crisis. But finally the media gives out the passage saying that the Gaddafi’s death is a significant transition of Libya’s history.

Reference:

http://world.people.com.cn/GB/8212/191606/217303/index.html

http://news.sina.com.cn/z/lbyfdpgjsd/index.shtml

http://news.qq.com/zt2011/libiyawar/index.htm

Japan and North Korea: Other Countries' position                                          --- By Shoichi 

I read some of Japanese newspaper and online news to see how the Medias in Japan is reported in Japan. In almost every newspaper and online news website, I saw Japanese Medias taking completely neutral position toward this incident. They only report what happened PHYSICALLY. They reported when and where Gaddafi was found killed. They reported what those people who are related to this incident said; for example, “NATO reported that…..” Japanese Medias only reported what is already reported. They only say what others already have reported. Therefore I believe that it will be appropriate to say they are in neutral position toward this news. On newspaper, this news took 1/16 of the front page on Japan Economic News. Although this was on the front page I don’t think the Media people didn’t really put focus on this because there wasn’t really content beside what happened. I believe that what people are thinking and what Gaddafi was really trying to say are more important than when and where Gaddafi is killed. Media people must understand these things that people want to know, but they didn’t report it. This fact led me to the conclusion that Japanese Media is refusing to reveal what is really going on in Libya.

Meanwhile, all of the Medias in North Korea are forbidden to reveal anything about Gaddafi’s death. It is reported that North Korea executive director of 109 (109 controls the import of DVD, CD, TV dramas from foreign countries.) used glue in order not to let people change their radio channel. It is also reported that some people who knew about Gaddafi’s death and tried to tell other people were caught. Ironically, I found out that this news which I found online is reported by Japanese Media which was reporting what South Korean Media has already reported.

 Moreover, I saw some different positions that are supporting Gaddafi and criticizing Media for reporting only one side of the story in online websites including: online posting, youtube. I saw some people strongly stating that Gaddafi was actually helping Libya and was not supposed to be killed. For example there was a message posted on a website like “This is what they mean by peace: let your country be used by a nuclear-armed state (that previously used them on civilians and which justifies this horrendous act to this very day) to practice bombing targets while you spend your time partying.” These people who are against Media claim that as a dictator Gaddafi saved Libya because Libya was the world poorest country before Gaddafi improved it. They also said that U.S. and other western countries helped attacking Gaddafi because they wanted the oil in Libya.

Reference:

http://sankei.jp.msn.com/world/news/111021/mds11102101270003-n1.htm

http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20111104-00000014-rcdc-cn

http://unitedblackamerica.com/16-reasons-life-lybia/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XorKTwkFPDU&feature=share

Comparison and positon: 

From all the news we found from different medias in different countries, we can find that medias choose to take different positions even when they are faced with the same material to report.

No matter Washington Post or Wall Street Journey, they both believe that the death of Gaddafi means a lot for both the democratization in Libya and the peace for the world. Also, they devote many pages even the headline in front page to report this event, along with crucial and strong phrase like “eccentric” and “brutal” to describe him.

Medias in Japan seems not that passionate about Gaddafi’s death, though they are considered in the same alliance with the United States. The Japan Economic News (The Nikkei), which can be taken as the representative of Japanese medias, spend one page to report this event in its international parts. It generally describes the whole procedure of the event and some reactions from other countries. But Japan keeps a neutral attitude to this event and does not say a lot about his own values on it.

As it comes to China, the People’s Daily, as the most influential news of Chinese government, only contributes two thirds of a page in its international column to this event. Instead of using Gaddafi’s death as the title of this article, it says that “Libya will turn over the page named “Gaddafi’s era” of its history”. Besides, it means something when we compare the difference of the position which Chinese medias hold as the event changed.

The medias in North Korea choose to keep silence rather than make any sounds about Gaddafi’s death when compared with medias in other countries.

So is there any kind of “leading classes” controlling the medias, especially for the news? The answer from us is YES! And we believe that the government plays a very important role in this event which has its impact all over the world. The performance of medias reflect exactly what the government want. The United States devote himself to maintain its righteous image to the public and maybe hide some unknown reasons for the war (Like the Iraq War, for the oil or the justice, who can tell?!) so that the media exaggerate the negative influence that Gaddafi brought and speaks less of his contribution to the development of Libya during his charge over the country painstakingly. Though Japan seems not that interested in this event, Japanese government has to ask its medias to make some responses because of its relationship with the United States and those European countries. Those responses are most neutral descriptions of the facts without any attitudes there since Japanese government will get very little, even none, profits in the coup of Libya. Changes of the attitudes of Chinese medias represent how Chinese government think about it in a way. Definitely that China cannot make any profit in this event and China used to have a fair relationship with Gaddafi’s government. But as the worldwide political pattern changed, Chinese government has to decide a new position for a better result for itself. So the compromise comes out in the end and through Chinese medias, it is spread to all over the world. The “sound of silence” phenomenon in North Korea just illustrates the attitude of the government there to autocracy: Once the people there know that they can make successful revolutions, they will pour all that they have to overthrow the government in the same way. They may push a lot of pressure to the media to block all the news about Gaddafi’s death to prevent any possibility to weaken their domination.

All in all, the media could represent the same news in different ways from the material to the way they describe it. They could make it as beautiful as the heaven, or as evil as the hell. Some media may have a better work than the others but we, as readers, can hardly tell the reality behind the words and pictures they provide to us. The only way for us to get a fully understanding of such an event is we have to take more than one position to think about it. Think as an American and then think as an Asian, there must be something more different we can get from.