Palestine’s Occupied Fourth Estate: An Inside Look at the Work Lives of Palestinian Print Journalists

Abstract

While for decades local Palestinian media remained a marginalized and often purely politicized subject, in recent years a series of studies has more critically analyzed the causes and consequences of its seeming diversity but structural underdevelopment.[1] However, despite these advances, the specific conditions facing Palestinian journalists in local print media have largely remained underreported. In this study, I address this research gap from a unique perspective: as viewed from the newsroom itself. I present the untold stories of the everyday work life of Palestinian journalists working at the three local Jerusalem- and Ramallah-based newspapers—al-Quds, al-Ayyam, and al-Hayat al-Jadida—from 1994 until January 2012. I discuss the difficult working conditions journalists face within these news organizations, and situate these experiences within the context of Israeli and Palestinian Authority policies and practices that have obstructed the political, economic, and social autonomy of the local press. I first provide a brief background on Palestinian print media, and then I focus on several key areas of concern for the journalists: Israeli and Palestinian violence, the economics of printing in Palestine, the phenomenon of self-censorship, the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate, and internal newspaper organization. This study covers the nearly two decades since the signing of the Oslo Peace Accords between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) which put in place the now stalled process of ending the Israeli military occupation of Palestine (used here to refer to the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip). My analysis is drawn from over fifty interviews with Palestinian journalists, media monitors, and politicians conducted in Jerusalem and Ramallah in August 2011 and January 2012.[2] From this in-the-field perspective I describe how—despite the potential for it to be otherwise—Palestinian print media remains an “occupied” fourth estate with the everyday lives of journalists shaped by red lines from all sides.[3]