Press boycott of Parliament

One of the phenomena in Jordan that have been puzzling me since I arrived here almost two years ago is the widespread use of boycotting as a political tool. While a boycott might be a legitimate instrument, the risk of a boycott backfiring is much higher than its chance of success.

Take the latest boycott example of (most of) the Jordanian Press boycotting the Parliament. It is really strange.

The Parliament was expected to pass a law amendment that would reduce/abolish a tax on newspaper ads. But the amendment was rejected by a majority – so it didn’t pass. One argument from the majority was that the government hadn’t respected the Constitution in the first place. Another argument, this time from the Press, was, that the parliamentarians were unhappy about the Press reporting on a  unfavourable poll about Parliament performance and that MP’s thus took revenge by rejecting a law favourable to the Press.

All mainstream newspapers (apart from Jordan Times) were apparently offended by some harsh remarks (not identifiable) from a parliamentarian about the Press. That triggered the standard response: boycott unless an apology is issued.

And this is where I don’t get it. The Press decided almost unanimously to boycott the whole parliament. It simply goes against the idea of professional reporting. What use is a boycott to the press when it needs to able to report on all sorts of political developments? Of course the editors can fight their political fight in the editorials, but why should the public be held hostage and not be told about what happens in such an important institution as a Parliament. And this has nothing to do with whether the Parliament is performing or not. Let the readers decide based on the news reports. Luckily this has so far ended with the newspapers giving up their boycott – without receiving any kind of apology – but I expect this is just another round in an ongoing battle between the first and fourth political power.

Next round has begun with the idea in the Parliament administration to regulate who among the journalists will have physical access to the Parliament….

You can read the developments yourself here, here, here and here.