敘利亞的媒體戰爭(二)／朱弘川編譯.

To augment its staff in Dubai, Orient TV tapped into social media to build a network of citizen journalists on the ground. Producers scrambled every day to find homemade footage of protests, demonstrations, crackdowns, and arrests. Each time they found a witness, the station gave him or her tips. Speaking over Skype, Orient TV staff relayed “how they should report, what they should see, and how they should follow the activity of the regime and the military also,” according to Aboud. Each day brought more news, and more chances to build contacts. He estimates that between 2011 and 2012, the station trained 1,000 activists in basic reporting skills, mostly over Skype and similar applications. Orient TV built a database of another 8,000 names of activists in many villages and towns who the channel could call in case of breaking news.

為了擴大杜拜的員工規模，Orient TV從社交媒體做起，建造了一個公民記者的網絡平台。製作團隊每天尋找有關抗議、示威運動、鎮壓和逮捕有關的影像。每一次他們找到目擊者，電視台會給他或她一點錢。根據Aboud的說法，Orient TV員工藉由Skype互通消息，會發佈「報導要如何呈現、人們需要看到什麼、以及人們也應該要追蹤政府和軍隊等的活動」等訊息。每天更多的新聞，就會有更多的機會去增加彼此的連繫，Aboud估計從2011到2012年間，電視台教導約1000名激進分子報導的技巧，大部分都是透過Skype和類似的工具。Orient TV另外建立了約8000多名激進分子的名單，這些人都散落在各個村落，需要時都可以做即時報導。

A small number of these activists grew into full-blown correspondents, of whom Orient TV has 22 inside Syria today. The channel preferred to hire locals who could read the shifting alliances that would soon become battle lines. As they had the activists, Orient TV staff trained their new reporters on the job, and sometimes more formally as well. When it was safe, the channel arranged for its ground team to cross the border into Turkey, where seasoned Arab journalists lectured on ways to circumvent regime surveillance and arrest, how to adopt a professional reporting tone, and other topics. “Maybe they were shouting Allahu Akbar while they were covering the news,” Mohammed Abdulrahim, the editor in chief, explains. Today, reporters leave the incantations to their interviewees.

這些激進份子裡有少數變成全職的通訊記者，而Orient TV現在就有20名通訊記者在敘利亞。電視台喜歡雇用那些，可以分辨那些未來可能成為同盟，並加入戰事的當地人。當擁有這些激進份子後，Orient TV員工會訓練新的記者來做真正的媒體工作。當局勢趨向安定後，電視台會安排當地團隊越過邊界進入土耳其，那裡有經驗豐富的阿拉伯記者，負責教導如何躲避政府的監視及逮捕，如何使用專業的報導語調和其他主題。「當他們在採訪新聞時，也許同時會對Allahu Akbar大喊」，總編輯Mohammed Abdulrahim解釋道。如今，記者們也會將這些「心法」傳授給未來的面試者。

UNTIL THIS WEEK, Aboud’s offices sat across the street from the Orient TV studios, in an older, mid-sized tower with slow elevators to his top-floor suite. On the day I meet him, he appears right on time in a perfectly tailored black suit. He greets me with a warm handshake and a request for my beverage order (coffee), which a server quickly delivers in a gold-rimmed porcelain cup. Aboud’s short bulky build gives him a fighting quality, while his manner, honed from years of salesmanship, is gracious and disarming.

直到這禮拜為止，Aboud的辦公室還座落於Orient TV攝影棚的對街，是在一個老舊、有著很緩慢電梯可到達他最高樓層套房的高樓裡。我見到他的那一天，他穿著合身的黑色西裝準時出現，很親切地和我握手招呼，並替我要了一杯咖啡。很快地，一杯鑲有金邊的瓷杯裝的咖啡就送到我面前來。也許是多年業務經驗的磨練，即便Aboud的矮短身材令人覺得強悍，但看起來是非常親切合宜的。

He leans forward in his gold-colored chair to recount how Orient TV was founded in a brief moment of optimism about his homeland. For decades, Bashar al-Assad and his father and predecessor, Hafez, used a 1963 State of Emergency Law to limit reporting on politics. In 2001, the younger Assad released Decree 50, which for the first time allowed private ownership in the media. The move was billed as part of a wave of economic liberalization, but politically, it had the opposite effect. Journalists could be charged with defamation, threatening national security, or disseminating disinformation—offenses that would get them jailed or worse.

他坐在金黃色的椅子上往前傾，訴說著當年Orient TV是因為對家鄉抱有樂觀想法而創立的。過去幾十年，Bashar al-Assad和他的父親，以及前任繼承者Hafez，濫用了1963年戒嚴令來限制媒體報導有關政治上的議題。在2001年，年輕的Assad頒布了「50政令」（Decree 50），第一次允許私人企業擁有媒體。這改變表面上是向經濟自由化招手，但政治層面上卻是反向的影響。因為新聞記者很有可能因誹謗、威脅國家安全，或散播不實消息等罪名被起訴，換來牢獄之災或更糟的下場。

Despite the restrictions on news, Decree 50 and subsequent relaxations did present an opportunity for entertainment. The broadcast market was promising, with advertising growing at about 10 percent per year, according to a report by the Dubai Press Club. Aboud had a fortune to invest, and a background in media; he had worked in public relations in the UAE before starting his car business, and held a degree in journalism from Damascus University. So when the opportunity arose, he leapt at the chance to start a channel. He says he spent $20 million setting up Orient TV, which opened in February, 2009 in Damascus, employing 149 Syrians.

雖然這條命令對新聞媒體有所限制，但和後續相關法令放寬，也確實讓娛樂產業看到了生機。廣播電視市場是有前途的，因為根據Dubai Press Club的報導，廣告收益每年都成長10%。Aboud有幸可以投資並擁有了媒體；在他開始自己的車商生意前，他曾在阿拉伯聯合大公國做過公關，並擁有大馬士革大學的新聞學系學位。所以當一有機會，他立刻創辦了電視台。Aboud說他花了2千萬美元在大馬士革創立Orient TV，並雇用了149名敘利亞人，當時是2009年。 

With its sleek design, Orient TV put state-run stations to shame. The channel ran lush music videos, popular Arab films, and children’s programs; talk shows covered events like Dubai Fashion Week. But the real crown jewels were Orient TV’s Ramadan serials, including a remake of a popular 1970s series about an orphan named Assad Warraq. The coming of age tale wraps in murder, crime, prison, and moral redemption—the formula for a hit. By 2010, Orient TV became one of dozens of Arab networks across the region competing for ratings during the holy month, when families fast in the daytime and stay up late into the evening.

Orient TV的前衛，讓國營的電視台相形見絀。Orient TV有豐富的音樂節目、受歡迎的阿拉伯電影和兒童節目；脫口秀像是杜拜流行周報（Dubai Fashion Week）。但真正的壓軸是一系列有關齋戒的節目，其中包括重新翻拍1970年代最受歡迎，有關孤兒Assad Warraq的故事。時代劇的故事則大多都圍繞在謀殺、犯罪、和道德救贖情節裡—這些都是受人歡迎的題材。到了2010年，Orient TV已經成為齋戒月時，阿拉拍世界裡最受歡迎的電視台。

Within weeks of the channel’s launch, the government seemed to regret having granted the license. Aboud says he was summoned to meet Rami Makhlouf, a maternal cousin of Assad thought to control as much as 60 percent of the country’s economy. Keen to consolidate his grip on the newly liberalized media sector, Makhlouf offered to buy Orient TV. When Aboud refused, he was threatened, he says, with poisoning and bankruptcy. On another occasion, he tells me, a top general vowed to kill him by staging a car accident.

電視台開播幾個禮拜後，敘利亞政府就後悔了。Aboud說他被Rami Makhlouf招見—Rami Makhlouf是總統Assad的表哥，而且他控制了國家約60%的經濟大權。為了鞏固媒體解禁之後的市場，Makhlouf告訴Aboud要買下Orient TV，而當Aboud拒絕後，他說曾有人威脅要毒害他或使他破產。在另外一個場合裡，Aboud告訴我，有人宣稱要策劃假車禍來殺他。

In July 2009, security forces raided Orient TV’s offices, seized its equipment, and forced employees to sign a document promising not to work with the channel. “They didn’t want to leave any independent voices,” Aboud tells CJR. Aboud was abroad when the raid happened, and he went back home only once afterward. His channel moved to Dubai with him. Syrians could still watch via satellite—by 2010, 74 percent of homes had a dish.

在2009年的7月，保安部隊搜索了Orient TV的辦公室，沒收所有的設備，並且強迫員工簽下同意離職的文件。「政府不願意人民有自己的聲音」，Aboud告訴了哥倫比亞新聞評論。當這件事發生時，Aboud人在國外，在這之後他只回去過家鄉一次，他的電視台也搬到了杜拜。但在敘利亞，一直到2010年為止，約有74%的家庭仍然可以透過衛星收看Orient TV的節目。

For nearly two years, Orient TV continued in exile much as it had in Syria. Aboud’s views of his home country, however, had darkened. In retrospect, he saw how corruption was spreading through the government as public discontent rose. “Since 2008, we noticed something really going on in society—some sort of mold,” he recalls. “We could even smell the blood in the streets. We just didn’t know when something would happen.”

將近兩年的時間，Orient TV繼續完成它們原本在敘利亞的工作，然而，在Aboud眼中，他的家鄉變得更陰鬱。回顧過去，他看著當民眾不滿情緒升起時，整個政府是怎樣的腐敗墮落。「從2008年開始，我們注意到整個社會開始變得不一樣了—有種發霉的感覺」，他回想著。「我們甚至可以聞到街上的血腥味，我們只是不知道事情什麼時候會發生而已。」

That something came in late 2010 and 2011, when a wave of protests rolled across the region.

這股不尋常的感覺，大概從2010年末持續到2011年，有一股反對派的聲浪席捲整個地區。

Orient TV couldn’t avoid mentioning the unrest in Tunisia, and then Egypt. “Our team was sure Syria would not be far from the rest of the Arab world,” Abdulrahim, recalls. Slowly, more news seeped into the broadcasts. “First 20 percent, then 30, then 50—and now more than 70 percent—of the time is news programming,” Aboud says. In early February 2011, the channel took the unusual step of running coverage to commemorate a government massacre of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood in Hama, Syria, in 1982. Programs edited by Aboud himself featured exiled opposition figures’ firsthand accounts of how the army rolled tanks into the heart of the city and mowed down civilians. By mid-March 2011, protests were erupting in Syria, and Orient TV became a devoted opposition news channel.

Orient TV對於突尼西亞和埃及的動盪，是無法視而不見的。「我們的團隊確信敘利亞離其餘的阿拉伯世界並不遙遠」，Abdulrahim回想著。慢慢地，新聞的所佔的比重愈來愈高。「一開始有20%，然後30%，再來50%，到現在超過70%的時間都是在播新聞報導」，Aboud說道。在2011年2月初，電視台為了紀念1982年發生的政府鎮壓反對派的流血死件—哈馬大屠殺（Muslim Brotherhood in Hama），採取與以住不一樣的報導方式。節目是由Aboud本人親自製作，以流亡反對派角色的第一手資訊，來描述軍隊是如開著坦克車殺進市中心並殺害市民們。到2011年3月中，敘利亞爆發抗議聲浪，而Orient TV也成了最大的反對派的新聞電視台。

At first, the proliferation of independent media seemed a godsend for the uprising. Sources like Orient TV “were breaking the news and highlighting what’s happening,” says Wissam Tarif, who has documented atrocities in Syria, first as founder of the regional human rights group Insan and today for the New York-based Avaaz. YouTube videos, live tweets, and photo streams seemed to provide a level of “ground truth that would have never been possible in the past,” according to a 2014 United States Institute of Peace social media study.

一開始，獨立媒體的激增，像是上天送給這股反抗熱潮的禮物。像Orient TV等電視台「不斷的播放即時新聞，並強調正在發生什麼事情」，Wissam Tarif說道。Tarif長年紀錄發生在敘利亞的政府暴行，創立了地區性人權團體Insan，目前則紐約的Avaaz任職。根據2014年美國和平研究所（United States Institute of Peace）的研究，YouTube影片、推持的推文和照片串流看起來似乎是提供了一種「前所未見的真實層面」。

Just as Orient TV had tapped into this fertile citizen network, international organizations saw democratic potential. Groups such as BBC Media Action, the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, and Avaaz sent trainers to work with Syrian citizen journalists; governments including the United States and France funded similar programs to build skills. Although many trainees began with near zero media literacy, “now, everyone has equipment, and the vast majority of activists have attended not one training but many trainings,” says Tarif.

就在Orient TV開始打入這肥沃的人民網絡之際，國際組織看到了民主的可能性。像是BBC媒體行動（BBC Media Action）、戰爭與和平報導機構(Institute for War and Peace Reporting)和Avaaz這樣的團體，都曾派訓練員到敘利亞協助訓練公民記者；政府機關包含美國及法國，都資助類似的計畫來提升這些公民記者的報導技巧。雖然很多受培訓者都是沒有相關媒體素養，「但現在每個人都有裝備，而且大多數的參與者都參加一種以上的技巧訓練」，Tarif說道。

Back in Dubai, Aboud says he started receiving phone calls from old contacts in the Syrian government, kindly asking Orient TV to “re-evaluate our opinions” about the uprising. Often, the advice came with threats to his family. “They call me and say, ‘We know your father is moving on this street and wearing such [clothing],’”” Aboud recalls his contacts telling him throughout March 2011.

回到杜拜，Aboud說他接到在敘利亞政府工作朋友的電話，很客氣的詢問Orient TV是否要對革命之事重新考慮—通常這種建議都是帶有威脅到他家人的語氣。「他們打給我說，『我們知道你父親剛搬到這條街上，而且穿著怎樣的衣服』…」，Aboud回想起他的朋友在2011年3月時的威脅。

Syria’s media war原文網址：http://www.cjr.org/analysis/syria_media_war.php

作者：Elizabeth Dickinson

編譯：朱弘川