Abu Dhabi, UAE
CNN
—

The Middle East has found itself embroiled in coverage of the conflict in Ukraine over the past week as journalists descended on the country to cover Europe’s biggest war in decades.

Western war reporters, more accustomed to being deployed in Middle Eastern conflict zones, were quick to draw comparisons. Some of these comparisons have gone too far, causing outrage in the Arab world.

“It’s not a place, with all due respect, you know, like Iraq or Afghanistan that has seen conflict rage for decades,” the CBS News foreign correspondent said, Charlie D’Agata, referring to Ukraine. “You know, it’s a city… relatively civilized, relatively European.” He then apologized.

Other media outlets expressed sympathy for the Ukrainian victims, with interviewees and correspondents pointing out that unlike the refugees from the Middle East, the Ukrainian victims were “white”, “Christian”, “middle class”, ” blondes” and “blue eyes”.

Within days, hashtags and even t-shirts bearing the phrase “civilized” surfaced in the Middle East in protest.

The media coverage prompted the New York-based Association of Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists to issue a statement condemning “the pervasive mentality in Western journalism of normalizing tragedy” in places like the Middle East.

Its chairman Hoda Osman, who has reported for several Western outlets including France24, ABC News and CBS News, said the contrast between coverage of Western victims versus those in the Middle East demonstrates a dehumanization of the latter.

We asked her why she thinks this is happening and what can be done about it.

Western media have many more minority journalists than before. Did this diversity carry over to the cover?

There’s no doubt that having more minority journalists would lead to better coverage, whether that’s detecting misinformation, bias and racism, booking interviews with knowledgeable people who understand the nuances, offering general and contextual information or helping with something as simple as correct translations and pronunciations.

Over the past 16 years, we have seen the number of Arab and Middle Eastern journalists working in Western media increase significantly. There is also more diversity in the type of media [Middle Easterners] are part of, from television stations and local newspapers to senior positions in national and international press organs. But we still need more. Just being in the room makes a difference and improves relationships.

Is the level of bias you see in the Western press unprecedented? What’s the difference this time?

What is sad this time is that [offending] the comments came casually, spontaneously and, therefore, revealed an existing bias, which we would expect from a journalist covering an international event.

Unfortunately, we weren’t shocked. The remarks drew attention through social media, but we knew this kind of prejudice and racism existed.

How seriously do you think news outlets take these allegations of bias?

I think public pressure will have some impact. I also expect many organizations to really want to do the right thing.

We asked newsrooms to train correspondents in the cultural and political nuances of the regions they report on, and not to rely on American or Eurocentric biases.

Do you think that now that Western journalists have covered a European war, they will be more sympathetic to the victims of Middle Eastern wars?

To be honest, I don’t think it matters whether they do it or not. We simply ask journalists to be journalists and do a good job of reporting without inserting their own biases into the story and without making unnecessary comparisons.

Transcript has been edited for length and clarity

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Human intervention has caused the number of Arabian leopards in Saudi Arabia to drop below 200. The kingdom is now trying to change that.

Saudi Arabia launched an awareness campaign last month to shed light on the critically endangered feline, as authorities work with conservationists to protect the remaining leopards.

The smallest member of the leopard family, Arabian leopards arrived in the mountains of northern Arabia nearly 500,000 years ago, the Royal Commission for AlUla (RCU) says on its website.

The Saudi city of AlUla is one of the oldest cities in the Arabian Peninsula and has become a hub of the kingdom’s heritage.

Humans are the primary cause pushing animals toward extinction, the commission said.

“Expanded human presence has reduced and fragmented the habitat of Arabian leopards,” the RCU wrote in an awareness brochure, adding that the conflict between cattle-raising communities in the area and the leopards’ attempts to attacking the animals of the herders lead either to man. attack or even hunt leopards.

In an effort to raise awareness, Saudi Arabia celebrated its first “Arabian Leopard Day” on February 10, where he lit up monuments with pictures of endangered cats with the hashtag #ArabianLeopardDay. In 2019 he launched a global fund to finance conservation projects, and last September saw the birth of a rare female in a captive breeding program in the town of Taif.

Arabian leopards emerged from Africa and symbolize the population of the peninsula. The commission says there may be fewer than 50 adult leopards left in the country. There are also few left in Oman and Yemen, with the last sighting in Saudi Arabia in 2014.

Conservation projects have also been underway in Oman since 2014, where a community of leopards took refuge in the mountains of the Jabal Samhan nature reserve.

In Yemen, dire conditions resulting from the ongoing war have led to neglect, with social media posts showing dead or captured feral cats.