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As with the country’s political system, the Lebanese media has long been regarded as a unique phenomenon in the Middle East. Reflecting the pluralism and diversity of Lebanese society, the country’s media sector has enjoyed relative freedom of the press and was privatized early in its history. Yet despite, its apparent pluralism, “the disorientation and fragmentation” of the media system, as described by media scholar Nabil Dajani, has often served the interests of the political elite instead of catering to the public.
As media systems often do, the Lebanese media largely reflects the social and political structures in which it operates. In short, the Lebanese political system is defined by weak state structures, deeply rooted confessionalism and patronage networks that are all reinforced by a network of political and religious elites using a perverted version of consociational democracy, particularly in the post-war era, as a fig leaf for their rule. As journalist David Hirst has recently described it, the Lebanese media landscape reflects the political/sectarian divisions in this “democracy of sorts.”
Media Laws
The 1989 Taif Accords reorganized the Lebanese media by limiting the then-large number of unlicensed radio and television stations. Shortly thereafter, the 1994 Audio-Visual Media Law 382 granted six new licenses to political/sectarian groups, reinforcing the country’s confessional system and officially ending the monopoly over electronic broadcasting held by Télé Liban, the state television network, which had effectively been terminated during the civil war.
The law also lead to the formation of the regulatory body, the National Audio-Visual council (NAVC), which was tasked with allocating licenses. The NAVC consists of five members appointed by the executive branch and five elected by the parliament, and therefore reflects the country’s political scene. Members of the NAVC have candidly acknowledged the pressures placed on them to distribute and withhold licenses for political reasons and in line with what media and communications scholar Marwan Kraidy has called “an obsessive formula of confessional balance.”
Because of this system, the Lebanese media landscape came to reflect the Muslim/Christian divide. Future TV was seen to represent the Sunni Muslims, NBN and Al-Manar TV the Shiite Muslims, while MTV was owned by a wealthy and influential Greek Orthodox family and LBCI by the Maronites. The Catholic church runs a non-profit and non-political TV station, Tele-Lumiere, which broadasts without a license and uses Télé Liban frequencies.
Lebanon’s political rivalries also played out in the country’s media landscape. In 1996, New TV (Al-Jadeed) purchased in 1992 by Tahseen Khayat, a wealthy Sunni businessman and rival of then-Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, was refused a license and then shut down even though the station had met all the licensing conditions. In response, New TV brought a successful legal challenge and was finally granted a license in 2000. In 2006, OTV, which is linked to General Michel Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement, was also granted a license.
Despite its powers to grant and refuse licenses, NAVC remains a toothless body with only consultative, rather than executive powers. In principle, the NAVC monitors the broadcasters and, in the case of violations, reports to the Minister of Information and suggests penalties. However, in practice, the NAVC rarely functions in this way, due in large part to its lack of monitoring equipment, the political backing enjoyed by most broadcasters, and the impunity these stations enjoy as a result of this support.
A recent case involving the popular political talk show, Kalam el-Nas, on the leading station LBCI is a case in point. One episode, broadcast live in October 2010, featured reports and interviews primarily with Sunnis who were fearful of another attack similair to the May 7, 2008 “events”. Believing the program could incite sectarian and civil strife, and possibly motivated by political considerations, NAVC submitted a report to the Minister of Information detailing the “violations” and recommending penalties against the talk show. Tarek Mitri, the then-Minister of Information who acknowledged that the Ministry possessed less power than Lebanon’s private television stations, submitted the report to the Council of Ministers for discussion. Citing the frequency of such violations, a majority of cabinet ministers chose not to penalize the program and station, and thereby effectively refused to enforce the law. A settlement was eventually reached with Pierre Daher, the cunning CEO of LBCI, to stop the rerunning of the episode the next morning. Daher is currently facing a legal battle with the Lebanese Forces movement over the ownership of LBCI.
In addition to the broadcasting law, the outdated Press Law, which was passed in 1962, remains generally unchanged save for a few amendments. Violations of the law carry heavy penalties, including the rare-use of imprisonment. As a result of lobbying by the non-governmental organisation Maharat and MP Ghassan Mkhaiber, a new draft law has been introduced into parliament proposing several amendments to the Press Law to bring it in line with Lebanon’s constitutional and international obligations. The parliamentary media and communication committee is currently studying the proposal, which allows for imprisonment of journalists only in cases involving affronts to human dignity. Many remain cynical that Lebanon’s parliamentarians, a number of whom have stakes in the media, will pass a law that may threaten their commercial and political interests.
The biggest problem with the Press law is its licensing system for political dailies. The law currently limits licenses for political dailies to approximately 110. Those license that have been issued but remain unused must be withdrawn by the Ministry of Information and made available to other prospective applicants. However, the Ministry has typically failed to perform this duty, transforming the “dormant” licenses into so-called “privileges” that are sold at high rates. In effect, anyone wishing to start a political daily is forced to buy an existing, unused license from the holder for between $200,000-$500,000. For most, the staggering price is too high to reach.
Nevertheless, the monopoly held by licensees has been broken by the advent of unregulated online media, which has leveled the playing field and permitted anyone to be a player in Lebanon’s media sector. Indeed, the Lebanese blogosphere and news websites are flourishing, with the websites in particular attracting online advertising that helps support their operations.
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