AUB in the World Media During the 2006 War: Direct and Indirect Contributions

The media, in its written, audio, and visual forms, is a powerful tool to disseminate information, and AUB worked hard on cooperating with the world media during the 2006 war to publicize the gravity of Lebanon's situation and the suffering of its people during the atrocities.

Over a thousand AUB-related press clippings and on-line news items were reported during the war. AUB was featured in numerous articles in The New York Times and in The Chronicle of Higher Education. AUB faculty, including AUB President John Waterbury, published articles in some of the world's most known journals and newspapers, all in an effort to exert indirect pressure to stop the atrocities against Lebanon. He and many AUB faculty and students sat for press interviews, not only to assess the political situation but to plead for help in alleviating the humanitarian disaster engulfing the country.

Farid El Khazen, professor at the Department of Political Studies and Public Administration; Karim Makdisi, director of the Institute of Financial Economics; Rami Khoury, director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy; Robert Fisk, world-renowned journalist and recipient of an AUB honorary doctorate in 2006; Ahmad Zewail, Nobel Prize laureate and recipient of an AUB honorary doctorate in 2005, Patrick McGreevy, director of the Prince al Waleed bin Talal Center for American Studies and Research, and Trustee Ann Zwicker Kerr, wife of late AUB President Malcolm Kerr, are a few of the many AUBites who wrote extensively in local and international journals on the 2006 crises.

Press like the BBC, NPR, CNN, Arabia, Fox News, Sky News, the Associated Press, USA Today, and ABC News are a few of the more than a hundred news agencies across the globe that contacted AUB for information, including specialists and people who would sit for interviews on topics that covered politics and the history of the crisis, as well as on evacuation procedures, relief efforts, the fuel crisis, aid funding, and the like.

Mediating with the media was one of the main services operating at AUB as soon as the war started. Ada Porter, director of Communications at AUB's New York Office, and Maha Al Azar, media relations officer at the Office of Information and Public Relations, described in detail how their offices helped reporters and news agencies develop their stories relating to the war.

"The day after the war started we were being asked how many Americans were there at AUB and what AUB planned to do in order to evacuate them safely. From the point of the student and faculty evacuations, the administration wanted to speak with the students from a specific point and from a specific area in the United States. They also wanted to speak with their parents. The challenging task was the mediation work needed to find a parent who was willing to speak to the press from the United States and a student willing to speak from Beirut at the same time, bearing in mind the time differences. Finding someone willing to stay up until 4 am in the morning in Beirut, because of the time difference, was also challenging," said Porter. Both Porter and Al Azar attest to the tremendous efforts made by AUB's International Students Coordinator Caroline Chalouhi, whose help was incredible in providing contact with students and parents, said Porter. Al Azar added, "When we were being asked to set up interviews with international students, Chalouhi who was following up with the evacuation procedure, was very helpful in providing contacts."

"When the evacuation phase was over, the press started requesting to speak with experts on Hezbollah and on the history of the region," said Porter. "Unfortunately," added Al Azar, "we have former professors who are experts on Hezbollah, but no current ones. Still, many faculty were interviewed. For example, Professors Hilal Khashan and Timor Goskel sat for more than 200 interviews during the war."

The scope of the issues covered in the media were wide. Topics were derived from stories written by faculty and from press releases written by the Office of Information and Public Relations. Campaigning to raise funds for the emergency medical fund also attracted attention and became the subject of stories. The fuel crisis got a great deal of coverage; some of it started following a group e-mail correspondence that reached a producer at CNN. "This initiated a whole wave of coverage on the fuel crisis," said Al Azar. She said AUB had established relationships with foreign journalists following the assassination of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and that "AUB has been on their radar since then."