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Widespread Anti-Americanism Complicates Job of Foreign Journalists in the United States

By Jessica Reaves, Spring 2007 IRP Fellow

WASHINGTON, January 31, 2007 — “In the minds of many editors, the line between being critical of the US and being hostile towards the US has been blurred,” said Hisham Melhem, the Washington correspondent for An-Nahar, a leading Lebanese daily, and host of a talk show on al-Arabiya, an arab satellite television station. Creeping and intensifying anti-American sentiment, increasingly familiar to many Washington-based foreign correspondents, provided the topic for an IRP seminar attended by the spring 2007 IRP Fellows and members of the SAIS community.

Melhem, who also contributes to the Kuwaiti daily Al-Qabas and France’s Radio Monte Carlo, was joined by José Díaz Briseño, Washington correspondent for Reforma, a Mexican daily, and Christian Wernicke, the U.S. correspondent for the leading German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung.

While their individual experiences with editors and readers are wildly divergent, the reporters agreed that since September 11, 2001, and again after the 2004 presidential election, international opinion of the U.S. has taken a dramatic turn for the worse, despite attempts by U.S.-based reporters to portray the nuances of the American experience and the complexity of the political process.

Melhem said some of that negative feeling is fed by the perception that U.S. policy is always a front for an unspoken, sometimes deeply sinister, purpose. Many Arabs, he continued, believe the U.S. is in Iraq for the oil, or for empire-building, or to help the Israelis. Other conspiracy theories abound. “When [the first President] Bush dispatched troops to Somalia, he talked about humanitarian missions and helping the UN. To many Arabs, this invasion was about oil in the Arabian peninsula, securing shipping lanes.”

According to Briseño, while his readers have been known to take a skeptical view of U.S. policy, the suspicion is tempered by the knowledge that Mexico and the U.S. have become completely intertwined economically, culturally and politically. “I find people are generally pretty happy to talk to me,” he said. “They seem to understand that Mexico is right across the border. They actually know where we are.”

Germany’s view of the U.S., on the other hand, is quickly approaching Arab-world levels of cynicism, according to Wernicke. “I can explain that in two words,” he said. “Iraq and Bush.” The current administration, he added, continually undermines its own cause by treating foreign correspondents with something like contempt, refusing to speak to them and ignoring requests for interviews. “I've worked in many countries,” Wernicke said, “and I've never experienced such a closed political system to foreign journalists as I have here.”

To illustrate his point, Wernicke shared this anecdote: During the 2004 campaign, two foreign reporters were traveling with the Bush bus. They ran into Karen Hughes, former White House Communications Director and one of the most senior Bush campaign advisers. After a few minutes of chatting, she asked them where they were from. They told her (Switzerland and New Zealand), and she stared at them for a moment before demanding, “Why am I wasting my time talking to you guys?” Hughes is now the Undersecretary for Public Affairs and Public Diplomacy at the State Department, charged with improving the U.S.’ image overseas.

U.S. politicians' reluctance to appeal to an international audience means anti-American stereotypes die hard, all three correspondents agreed. It also means foreign correspondents are often forced to rely on secondary and tertiary sources for their stories. “I’m working on sources at think tanks now,” said Wernicke. “My hope is they’ll be part of the next administration.”

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