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Framing a Friendly Dictator: U.S.
Newsmagazine Coverage of Pakistani

President Musharraf After 9/11
Shortly after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on
September 11, the rhetoric of the United States government made clear that the world
was about to experience the first major political division since the end of the Cold War in
the 1980s. The new political discourse, mainly built upon binary oppositions, was
primarily defined through the speeches of President George W. Bush. He defined the
War on Terror as a fight of freedom against oppression, a fight of the civilized against the
barbarians, and a fight of the democratic against the undemocratic.
In January 2002, in his State of the Union address, Bush declared that three
countries – Iraq, Iran and North Korea – form an “axis of evil.” In a later explanation of
this statement, during his visit to Japan in February 2002, Bush said that the United
States of America “… cannot allow nations that aren't transparent, nations that have a
terrible history, nations that are so dictatorial they are willing to starve their people… to
be made up with terrorist organizations” (CNN.com, February 18, 2002.)
This clear rhetorical division of “democratic” versus “non-democratic” and
“dictatorial” regimes does not always follow the politically pragmatic division of
enemies versus allies. In this sense, one country’s role has been particularly intriguing in
the developing events—Pakistan.
In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, Pakistan obtained a crucial role in
the South Asian region both because of its convenient geo-strategic position and its long
history of an unstable alliance with the United States. Pakistani leader, President Pervez
Musharraf, is a military dictator who discontinued his support of the Taliban regime in
Afghanistan after the September attacks, which made him an instant ally of American
foreign policy. During Musharraf’s visit to the United States in February 2002, President
George W. Bush admired the Pakistani President’s “courage and vision” and described
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Framing a Friendly Dictator: U.S. Newsmagazine Coverage of Pakistani
him as the “key partner in the global coalition against terrorism” (BBC News, February
14, 2002). Pakistan became an American ally despite the fact that it is, indeed, a
dictatorial country, which, until recently, has been made up with terrorist organizations.
According to the 2001 report of Amnesty International, Pakistan is not a free
country. In the annual report on Pakistan (Amnesty International, 2001), Amnesty
International reports that since Pervez Musharraf took power in a military coup in 1999
from a democratically elected government of Navaz Sharif, human rights in the country
have deteriorated.
Despite the government’s stated commitment to human rights protection, human rights
violations including torture and deaths in custody increased during 2000. Minorities were
not given adequate protection when religiously motivated violence flared up. Violence
against women and children continued at a high level. Political activities remained
restricted following a ban on public activities in March. Activists contravening the ban
were detained and some were charged with sedition. Several people detained at the time
of the coup remained in unlawful detention. The death penalty was frequently imposed,
but was banned for juveniles.1
Another non-governmental organization, Freedom House,2 describes Pakistan as
an undemocratic country whose regime seriously violates civil rights. This organization
reports that, although the Pakistani President promised to “return Pakistan to civilian rule
in 2002 after cleaning up the country's finances and politics, the Musharraf regime also
undermined the judiciary, cracked down on party activists, and backtracked on some
social reforms in the face of pressure from Islamic fundamentalists” (Freedom House,
2001.) On several occasions Musharraf promised to restore civilian rule when the
mandate given to him by the Supreme Court expires, but he also expressed the intention
to hold the Presidential position regardless of the elections’ outcomes, therefore already
revealing that he does not intend to go through the standard democratic procedure.
This research will explore how the American media portrayed the leader who has
become one of the most controversial American allies after September 11. It will
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examine the way the three most influential American newsmagazines – Newsweek, Time
and U.S. World & News Report – framed the role of the dictator Pervez Musharraf after
the September 11 attacks.
Determinants of the coverage of Pakistan in the U.S. press
Pakistan and the United States
For a long period of time, Pakistan has been considered a potentially important
American ally in South Asia, but the partnership has been unstable ever since its
beginning in the 1950s. The interest of the United States in Pakistan has always been
moderate and largely determined by the relationship with Pakistan’s larger neighbor,
India, which was almost continuously considered to be a more important U.S. partner in
the region (Kux, 2001; Rahman, 1982) Throughout the 1990s, Pakistan changed
governments several times. In 1997, the government of Navaz Sharif was reelected to
replace Benazir Bhutto, who was discredited by corruption scandals.3
On October 12, 1999, Pervez Musharraf, then the Pakistani Army Chief of Staff,
was returning to Karachi on a commercial flight when Sharif’s government suddenly
announced Musharraf’s dismissal. The Karachi airport tower was instructed by Sharif not
to allow the plane to land but to divert it elsewhere, even though it was low on fuel. It
was then, in the air, when Musharraf organized a military coup that ended in Sharif’s
imprisonment and Musharraf taking over Pakistan. At that time, Musharraf was known to
global public as the author of the failed Kargil plan in May 1999, when a large number of
Pakistani-supported insurgents had crossed the line of control in the far north of Kashmir
to occupy 15,000-foot positions near the town of Kargil. After failing to gain support
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from Pakistan’s international allies, Sharif was forced to withdraw the forces from the
area.
After the coup, Musharraf appointed himself “chief executive,” declared a state of
emergency, and issued the Provisional Constitution Order (PCO), which suspended
Parliament, provincial assemblies, and the constitution (Kux, 2001). In his interviews to
the Western press, Musharraf justified the coup as a response to Pakistan’s horrible
economic situation. In response to the military takeover, the U.S. government imposed
the sanctions legally required in the case of the overthrow of a democratically elected
government, but those had little actual impact since Pakistan was already under severe
sanctions. The United States insisted that Musharraf should clearly determine a timetable
for democratic elections.
Musharraf’s rule
According to the Pakistani News Service, which describes itself as a non-partisan
and independent Internet news service, and the official website of the Islamic Republic of
Pakistan,4 Musharraf was born in Delhi in 1943 as second of three brothers. Musharraf
spent his childhood in Turkey due to his father’s deputation in Ankara. He joined the
Pakistani Military Academy in 1961 and he participated in the 1965 India-Pakistan war.
He also served for seven years in the Special Services Group Commandos as a volunteer
and participated in the Third India-Pakistan war in 1971 as a Company Commander.
Musharraf studied at the Royal College of Defense Studies in the United Kingdom.
Musharraf’s successful military career peaked when Prime Minister Navaz Sharif
promoted him to the rank of general and appointed him chief of army staff. In addition to
this, Musharraf was given the charge of Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee in
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1999. After the military coup in October 1999, he proclaimed himself the Chief
Executive of Pakistan and he was sworn in as the President of the Islamic Republic of
Pakistan in June 2001.
In an attempt to assess Musharraf’s rule, Constable (2001) states that military’s
attempt to reform major societal institutions in Pakistan without a legitimate mandate is
deeply contradictory. The author states that, although Musharraf has announced an
ambitious agenda for reforms, he has avoided making any meaningful change in his
country. Since Musharraf’s government took power, argues Constable (2001), foreign
investments have plummeted and unemployment and poverty have risen. Malik (2001)
adds that Musharraf’s government reinforced the dominance of state over society and
failed to address the nation’s economic problems. The author argues that, in spite of
Pakistani leader’s denunciation of human rights abuses against women and minorities,
separate electorates for minorities and combative blasphemy clauses in the penal code
have not been eradicated, while police use of force to obtain confessions has continued.
Islam in a post-Cold war frame
As a country whose population is 97 % Muslim, Pakistan is covered in the media
in terms of an overall frame of West versus Islam, as explained in the works of Said
(1997), Siddiqi (1997) and Karim (1999; 2001). Those authors argue that a new binary
opposition of West versus Islam replaced the Cold War frame in the international
coverage of news.
Said (1997) dissects the misunderstanding of Islam in the media, starting from the
misrepresentation of facts to blatant examples of cultural prejudice. According to Said,
Islam is subject to the stereotypical portrayals and malicious generalizations that only
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widen the gap between Western and Islamic countries. On the superficial layer, some of
the most reoccurring biases in the U.S. media coverage of Islam are produced because of
the lack of journalists’ knowledge and education. Said (1997) claims that the Western,
and particularly American media, tend to cover Islam in an orthodox, canonical way,
which mirrors long-standing cultural prejudices of the West towards Islam that the author
previously explained in Orientalism, one of the seminal works in this field.
Drawing upon Said’s work, Karim (2001) emphasizes the dominant narratives
that depict Muslims in the Western media. Karim (2001) argues that one of the greatest
problems of Western media coverage of Islam is that Muslims as a whole are presented
as dangerous to Western interests. Throughout a long period of misusage, the
“Islamicness” of certain actions became a self-explanatory denominator that denotes a
militant religion opposed to modernity of any kind. Terms like “Islamic fundamentalists”
or “Islamic militants,” that have become a part of the large frame of the Western media
coverage of Islam, therefore, irretrievably attribute negative meanings to one whole
religion. Said (1997) claims that labels attributed to the Muslim population today could
not be attributed to any other ethnic or religious group in the mainstream discussion.
Literature review
Critical perspective of the U.S. media coverage of the international news
In an extensive body of literature that has been written about the determinants of
international news coverage in U.S. media, a reoccurring theme that can be determined:
the attributes of a country that the event took place in often determine the coverage
almost as much as than the event itself.
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Chang, Shoemaker, and Bredlinger (1987) proposed seven criteria of deciding
what is newsworthy in terms of international news: potential for social change, normative
deviance (oddity or uniqueness of the event, which would break the norm if it had
occurred in the U.S.,) relevance to the U.S., language affinity, geographical distance
(closer countries are preferred in news coverage,) press freedom, and the economic
system of the country being covered. Hester (1973) argued that the determinants involve
hierarchy of nations (which includes geographic size, population, economic development,
and its length of existence as a sovereign nation,) their cultural affinities (such as shared
language, amounts of migration among countries or amount of intermarriage,) economic
associations, and news and information conflicts. Gans (1979) detected eight clusters of
enduring values in American news that influence the decision on what becomes news:
ethnocentrism, altruistic democracy, responsible capitalism, small-town pastoralism,
individualism, moderatism, social order, and national leadership.
When discussing the influences on media content, Shoemaker and Reese (1991)
suggest a model of concentric circles. According to that framework, personal attitudes
and orientations of reporters are in the center of the scheme and surrounded by four other
levels, or circles: the media routines level, the organization level, the extramedia level,
and the ideological level. Following the tradition of critical theory, the authors stress the
importance of media owners in the process of making decisions about the news content,
and they view hegemonic values in news as tools of permeating the notion of “common
sense”5 in the society. Shoemaker and Reese state that sources can exert a subtle
influence on news content by offering “the context within which all other information is
evaluated, by providing usable information that is easier and cheaper to use than that
from other sources” (p.150).
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Most of the contemporary critical analysis of the media coverage of the
international news builds upon the writings of Noam Chomsky, Edward S. Herman, and
Michael Parenti. Herman (1993) claims that the American media tend to ignore relevant
information in the coverage of international events when it collides with the national
agenda. He argues that the media unjustifiably treat governmental sources as a priori
credible, therefore allowing domestic leaders to manipulate them. Herman supports his
argument with a series of short examples of the media encoding of international events,
with emphasis on the controversial role of the American media in the Gulf War.
Herman and Chomsky (1988) argue that a propaganda model exists even in the
countries whose democratic regimes do not publicly exert pressure on the media.
According to the authors, American media follow the frame of the propaganda model,
which consists of five filters: (1) size, ownership and profit orientation of the mass
media, (2) advertising license, (3) sources, (4) flak and the enforcers, and (5)
anticommunism as a control mechanism. Herman and Chomsky argue that those filters
marginalize and eliminate voices of dissent in the American mainstream media, which
become the tools “that can set the national agenda” (p. 4.) The authors conclude that U.S.
media coverage of “enemy” countries, such as communist regimes, differs from the
coverage of “friendly” or “client” regimes, such as military dictatorships in Latin
America.
Building upon the work of Herman and Chomsky, Michael Parenti (1993) argues
that the media’s distortions of news are not due to “objective” restraints such as time,
space, and money, but that they serve the purpose of recreating “a view of reality
supportive of existing social and economic class power” (p. 8). Parenti asserts that the
regimes that serve a certain political or economic interest to the United States, such as
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Pakistan, South Korea, El Salvador, Chile, Turkey and Honduras, will not be covered
negatively in the American media in spite of the “acts of repression, torture, and
assassination” that they perpetrate (p. 177). American media, according to Parenti, are
more likely to frame dictators, coups, and massacres in client countries with the terms
like “the country’s strongman,” “tough,” “severe,” “firm,” “no-nonsense,” and
“clampdown” (pp. 176-179). According to Parenti, military leaders of these countries are
often portrayed as brave saviors who took power in the middle of chaos.6
In their comparative study of the New York Times coverage of the 1996 Indian
and Israel election, Jayakar and Jayakar (2000) argue that the influence of foreign policy
on the press is not direct, but that the reporters often become excessively dependent “on
the ‘digested wisdom’ of the national foreign policy establishment or the local diplomat
of the home country” (p. 129). The authors argue that, when the media take on the
dominant news frames as offered by the foreign policy officials, they inevitably transmit
certain “hegemonic frames,” which results in mobilizing support for foreign policy
actions.
Framing
Entman (1993) defines framing as a fractured paradigm, a theory that needs to be
reconstructed and synthesized in order to avoid casual definitions. Entman suggests a
broad definition of framing by saying:
To frame is to select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a
communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal
interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation for the item described.
(p. 52.)
Entman argues that there are four stages of framing an event: (1) defining the
problems, (2) diagnosing the causes, (3) making moral judgments (evaluating actions)
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and (4) suggesting remedies. He asserts that frames are only partially defined by the
salience of certain information in the text, while the omission of information is equally
important, yet often ignored.
Gamson and Modigliani (1989) argue that media discourse consists of sets of
frames that cluster in interpretive packages. Although packages allow for a certain degree
of disagreement among frames used to construct them, the overall message of a package
is unambiguous and clear. Three broad ideas may determine the influence of packages:
cultural resonances (packages that resonate with larger cultural themes are more
powerful,) sponsor activities (certain agents promote their agenda through public
relations,) and media practices (journalists tend to place trust in official sources.) The
authors, referring to the previous work of Gamson and Lasch, distinguish the following
five framing devices: (1) metaphors, (2) exemplars (such as historic examples,) (3)
catchphrases, (4) depictions, and (5) visual images.
In an attempt to define framing more precisely, Scheufele (1999) proposes a
typology which takes into account two dimensions: (1) media versus individual frames
and (2) independent versus dependent frames. Closest to the critical/cultural studies
perspective of this research is Scheufele’s notion of media frames as dependent variables,
which focuses on “extrinsic and intrinsic factors influencing the production and selection
of news” (p.109), such as ideology, social norms and values, and professional routines of
journalists.
Reese (2000) views framing as a possible solution for the methodological
problems of cultural studies. He defines frames as “organizing principles that are socially
shared and persistent over time, that work symbolically to meaningfully structure the
social world” (p.11).
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Coverage of political leaders
Not many studies focus on media coverage of political leaders
exclusively. One of the rare examples is Brown’s (1980) study of news articles about
Steven Biko, a South African black leader whose death provoked the United States to
punitive response. Brown compares the coverage of Bico in The New York Times and
Washington Post before and after his death in 1977. Once he was dead, Bico was
described as “moderate” and a “responsible voice” for change, although there is evidence
that, while he was alive, the views that he actually supported were seen as radical in the
U.S. press.
In his quantitative analysis of U.S. media framing of North Korean leader Kim
Jong Il from 1994 to 2000, Heo (2000) concludes that the portrayals of the leader were
predominantly negative. Using Entman’s (1993) definition of the four functions of a
frame, Heo argues that the U.S. media defined the problem as the uncertainty of Kim and
North Korea as an important threatening factor to the United States’ interests in East
Asia. The cause of this threat was Kim’s irrational, unpredictable personality and
behavior, while the moral judgments made claimed that the dangerous dictator is
interested only in expanding armaments, movies and Swedish women. The solution
suggested that the threat should be immediately eliminated.
Other studies look at the framing of political leaders in the context of a certain
event. Iyengar and Simon (1993) find that network news coverage during the Gulf War
portrayed Saddam Hussein as a “modern Hitler, bent on annexing and controlling the
world’s supply of petroleum” (p. 382). In an analysis of North American press coverage
of the Peruvian hostage crisis, Bailey (2000) describes how the Peruvian president
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Fujimori was framed as “tough on terrorists,” “strong-willed,” “hard-lined,”
“confrontational,” and “intransigent” (pp. 145-167), while the reports of human rights
organizations, such as Amnesty International, showing the increase of human rights
violations under his government were left out of the frame. Bailey calls these omissions
“blindspots” that form “consistent patterns of omission within North American foreign
news coverage in general” (p. 165).
Research Questions
According to the critical/cultural studies research, the U.S. media coverage of
international news is largely determined by the country’s foreign policy stance. The U.S.
media tend to portray positively those political leaders who yield to the interests of the
United States government, even when they represent non-democratic regimes. The
critical/cultural studies researchers assert that a couple of pointers in particular reveal the
compatibility of the U.S. international press coverage with the foreign policy stance: the
selective usage of sources and consistent patterns of omission.
In addition to that, the Islamic countries, such as Pakistan, are portrayed through a
negative West versus Islam frame that substituted the Cold War frame from the 1980s.
Several authors from the cultural studies field argue that the Western press coverage
often presents the whole Islamic population as opposed to the principles of modernity,
militant and dangerous to Western interests. The literature review shaped the following
three questions:
1. How was the role of Pakistani leader Pervez Musharraf’s framed in the U.S
newsmagazines after he became an American ally in September 2001?
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2. Were there any consistent patterns of omission in the framing of Musharraf’s
role?
Method/Procedures
The study combined critical/cultural studies perspective with the four functions
framing concept as explained by Entman (1993). The author explains that the media (1)
determine the problem, mostly in terms of their common cultural values. The following
causal interpretation results in (2) identifying the forces (agents) that created the problem.
The agents are then (3) evaluated through the moral lenses of the media and, finally, (4)
remedies that are supposed to resolve problems are suggested.
This study analyzed the coverage of President Musharraf in the three best-selling
American newsmagazines – U.S. News & World Report, Time and Newsweek7 - five and
a half months after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, i.e. from
September 11, 2001 until the end of February 2002. The end date was determined by the
beginning of research. The three newsmagazines were chosen because of their influence
in the United States and newsmagazine’s general tendency to cover the events in a more
interpretive, in-depth manner.
The data for this research were gathered by using the Lexis-Nexis search engine
for the key word “Musharraf.” The search for the period examined produced 128 articles
that mentioned Musharraf – 52 from Newsweek, 56 from Time magazine and 20 from
U.S. World and News Report. In the first phase of the research, every news story was
carefully read. Editorial articles were treated as any other journalistic text because this
study treats media discourse as a product that is subject to organizational forces of media
institutions. From this point of view, the media discourse should be examined as a whole
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because nothing in it can escape those influences – from headlines and pictures to the
commentaries.
In the first phase, four framing devices, as defined by Gamson and Modigliani
(1989), were noted on “analytic sheets:” (1) metaphors, (2) exemplars (historic examples
used to explain a present example,) (3) catchphrases and (4) depictions. This phase of
research produced almost 20 thematic points. In the second phase of research, these
thematic points merged into four overarching themes that fulfilled the four functions of
framing.
Findings
Over the first five and a half months of U.S. newsmagazines’ coverage Pakistani
President Pervez Musharraf was framed as a “strong ally” – a reliable leader who, by
deciding to support the United States, took the “right,” Western side. This overall frame
was reinforced by four major thematic points that together perform the four functions of a
frame, as defined by Entman (1993).
The first point constructs Musharraf as a positive dictator, a closet liberal whose
rule has a lot of characteristics of a true democracy. The second theme emphasizes those
personal and biographical facts about Musharraf that reinforce the image of a modern,
“civilized” pro-Western leader. The third thematic point portrays the “Islamic
fundamentalists” in an orthodox, canonical way that fits within the broad frame of the
West versus Islam. This theme contrasts the “irrationality” and “exoticness” of “Islamic
fundamentalists” with the “reasonable” and “pro-Western” stance of the Pakistani
president. The fourth thematic point suggests that the present unstable situation in
Pakistan demands that Musharraf should stay in power.
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Closet liberal in a dictator’s suit
The U.S. newsmagazines depicted Musharraf as a relatively mild, pro-Western
leader whose dictatorship performs many functions of a true democracy. The Pakistani
leader was portrayed as a person whose genuine intentions are democratic, but the
circumstances make it impossible to realize this tendency. The main devices used to
construct such a portrayal were justifications and patterns of omission.
In all of the magazines, Musharraf was entitled as “president,” “military ruler” or
“general,” even “a new friend” of the Western countries but not as a dictator. In terms of
catchphrases, the military coup that he performed in 1999 was labeled as a “bloodless
coup,” which emphasized the positive side of that act. The fact that Musharraf overthrew
the democratically elected government of Navaz Sharif was mostly omitted. On several
occasions the previous democratic government was labeled as “sham” and “false.”
Musharraf’s dictatorship was normalized, presented as a standard and even
desirable state for a country susceptible to “Islamic extremism,” such as Pakistan
(“dictatorships in Pakistan are collegial things”, Newsweek, Oct.7, Behind America’s
Attack on Afhanistan; “it may be a good thing for the antiterror coalition that Pakistan is
ruled by a friendly military dictatorship, rather than what could be a hostile democracy,”
Newsweek, Oct.22, A Fine Balance).
The newsmagazines emphasized those political moves of the Pakistani leader that
were of importance for the success of the United States’ fight against the Taliban regime,
such as Musharraf’s removal of three high-ranked generals labeled as “extremist,” and
the premature retirement of the chief of Pakistani secret service, ISI, considered to be
close to the Taliban regime. Of less interest for the American newsmagazines and less
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emphasized were Musharraf’s decisions that were primarily important to his own
country, such as his “anticorruption drive,” “jailing of politicians for abuse of
democracy” (Time, Oct. 22, The World’s Toughest Job), “free press,” and “great degree
of government transparency” (Newsweek, Jan. 28, Pakistan’s Striving Son).
When interpreting the negative aspects of Musharraf’s rule in the period before he
became an American ally, the U.S. newsmagazines framed the Pakistani leader as weak,
even “the world’s weakest dictator,” who was, until recently, unable to oppose the threat
of “Islamic radicalism” (“when Musharraf tried to overturn Pakistan’s draconian
blasphemy laws, often used by Muslim fundamentalists to silence liberals, he had to back
down,” Newsweek, Jan. 28, Pakistan’s Striving Son; “he repeatedly looked weak when he
ran up against them [religious extremists],” “he kept silent when mullahs in the
Northwest Frontier instructed men to forcibly marry – code for rape – women working
for aid agencies,” Time, Oct. 22, The World’s Toughest Job). Similarly, Musharraf’s first
months in power after the coup in 1999 were labeled as “contradictory,” mostly without
any further explanation.
In the observed period of time, Musharraf called the fight for Kashmir between
India and Pakistan a “freedom fight.” This statement, which contradicts peace efforts
between the two countries, was either omitted from reports or framed as necessary to
“placate the fundamentalists at home” (Newsweek, Oct.15, Picking One’s Friends).
Musharraf’s statement that Pakistan is the “fortress of Islam,” which could be labeled as
radical, was also justified as yielding to “Islamic fundamentalists.”
In terms of exemplars, Musharraf was sporadically compared to former Egyptian
president and Nobel Peace Prize Winner Anwar Sadat, who was murdered in 1981 by
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Islamic militants. The “Sadat” frame emphasized Musharraf’s positive role in the conflict
and his courageousness.
Pro-Western leader in a fundamentalist country
The U.S. newsmagazines repeatedly emphasized Pervez Musharraf’s personal and
biographical characteristics that depict him as a modern, pro-Western leader. In terms of
catchphrases, Musharraf was described as “secular-minded” or coming from a “secular-
minded” family. He was labeled as “progressive”, “modern” and “liberal in his private
life.” In terms of depictions, the U.S. magazines repeatedly emphasized his Western
clothes (“dressed in an Armani suit,” Newsweek, Jan. 28, Pakistan’s Striving Son;
“wearing a dapper blue suit rather than his usual earth-tone uniform,” Newsweek, Nov.
19, This is Not a War). His usual outfit, a brown military uniform, was omitted from the
frame.
As opposed to the long beards of the “Islamic fundamentalists,” Musharraf’s
moustache was “neatly clipped,” (“a low-key soldier with a neatly clipped moustache and
tolerant views,” Time, Oct. 1, On the Edge: A Nation With Nukes”), his pets were dogs,
animals considered unclean in Islam (“pet dogs, regarded in Islam as unclean,” Time,
Oct. 22, The World’s Toughest Job) and his new army vice chief of staff was described
as a “moderate general whose friends call him Joe” (Time, Oct. 22, The World’s
Toughest Job).
Musharraf’s biographical data were framed in a way that those facts that
reinforced his “Westerness” were more salient than those pertinent to the Islamic culture.
The parts of his biography that would not fit within that “Western” frame were either
reinterpreted or completely omitted. Most of the information about his military career,
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and particularly his participation in several India-Pakistan border wars, were not
mentioned in the articles. Similarly, his failed Kargil plan in 1999, which caused many
casualties and ended in the international condemnation of Pakistan, was either omitted
from the frame or portrayed as a “daring incursion” (Time, Jan. 14, The Poet and the
Soldier).
Following facts from Musharraf’s biography that depict him as a person
pertaining to the Western cultural experience were also present: his studies in the United
Kingdom, his fluency in English, his cricket games, and the fact that his mother is
educated, while his younger brother lives in the United States.
Islam as the ultimate source of evil
Since the violent protests against Musharraf’s support to the United States began
at the end of September 2001, the newsmagazines started dedicating more space to the
coverage of “Islamic fundamentalism” in Pakistan. Islam was presented in an orthodox,
canonical way: the label “Islamic” was used instead of any economic, historical or
political explanation of the cause of crisis in the country. The West versus Islam frame
that is often present in the Western media’s coverage of Islamic countries emphasized the
difference between the “civilized” Musharraf and his “uncivilized” nation.
All of the three newsmagazines contrasted the framing of Musharraf as a pro-
Western leader, who is striving to pull the country out of the chaos, with the framing of
“Islamic fundamentalists” as a “rifle-wielding,” “angry Muslim mob” in the streets that
threatens the stability of the country. While the “Islamic fundamentalists” were
constantly talked about, they were rarely quoted as sources. The few quotes from the
Pakistani “fundamentalists” reveal them as pertaining to a deviant and violent culture
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(“In our culture, we give our baby son an unloaded pistol to play with in the cradle so
that it becomes acquainted with guns,” Time, Oct. 1, On the Edge). Even the depictions
of Pakistani streets reinforced the Western stereotypes about Muslims. Following is an
example found in U.S. News and World Report:
‘ “Here in Peshawar’ spice bazaars and winding dirt alleys, where barefoot children race
with wheelbarrows and traders offer brown wads of hashish, three young Pashtuns high
on opium were itching for a fight hours before the bombing started. When word came
that Jalalabad and Kabul had been hit, they grabbed their Kalashnikov rifles and headed
towards Afghanistan” (Oct. 12, On the mean streets).
The “Islamic fundamentalists” were described as a group of people whose
actions are irrational, incontrollable, and, therefore, not understandable from the Western
point of view. In terms of catchphrases, they were labeled as “hard-line religious forces,”
“enraged crowds,” “angry Muslim mob,” “Muslim fundamentalists,” and “Islamic
extremists.” (“Enraged crowds, armed with cricket bats and Zippo lighters and looking
for American targets, smashed and burned a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet in Karachi,”
U.S. News and World Report, Oct. 22, In Islamabad; “to further consolidate power ahead
of expected demonstrations from angry Muslim fundamentalists,” Newsweek, Oct.7,
Behind America’s Attack on Afghanistan). On several occasions, “Islamic
fundamentalists” were equated with the whole Pakistani population (“Musharaf was
struggling to dampen passions on the streets and reassure his countrymen,” U.S. News &
World Report, Oct. 12, On the Mean Streets; “In a country awash in illegal weapons,
violence is inevitably part of the picture. And it isn’t restricted to the illiterate and
destitute,” Time, Oct.1, One Family Divided).
In the period observed, the newsmagazines equated Islam with violence and
terrorism in a way that religiosity itself became deviant and potentially dangerous (“a
million children are enrolled in medressas and emerge qualified only for religious work.
19
Housewives and grandmothers who used to spend their mornings gossiping and getting
manicures are diligently attending Koran groups”; “Islam and the modern world cannot
coexist,” Time, Oct. 1, One Family Divided). Pakistan was depicted as a “culture of
Islamic radicalism” and a “crucible of politics and religion” where “honor and revenge”
are the paramount code.
When opposed to the “mob,” Musharraf was described as a calming factor, a
force of order capable of opposing the “Islamic threat” (“the fight that matters will be
struggle of a seemingly professional soldier, Pakistani’s military ruler, Pervez Musharraf,
against the agitations and the wrath of the mob”; “he could join the forces of stability or
let Pakistan drift into further chaos,” U.S. News and World Report, Oct. 1, In the cruel
mountains; “ Musharraf held back the tide and stood up to the fundamentalists and the
agitators,” U.S. News and World Report, Nov. 26, The Gathering Fog Over Araby; “he is
targeted by Islamic radicals; so he will use the brutality and cunning that got him where
he is to stay,” U.S. News & World Report, Oct. 12, On the Mean Streets).
One exemplar in particular emphasized Musharraf’s opposition to “Islamic
fundamentalists”: the media repeatedly reported that the Pakistani leader’s role model is
Kemal Ataturk, the founder of Turkey as a secular society (“the founder of Turkey’s
military-guided secular society,” Newsweek, Jan. 28, Pakistan’s Striving Son).
Musharraf as a guarantee for peace
All of the three magazines argued that, because the country is in a chaotic state,
Musharraf is one of the few guarantees for peace in the region. If Musharraf would lose
power, the takeover by the “Islamic fundamentalists” would be inevitable (“his
government might be precarious, susceptible to a revolt by Islamic extremists;” “hard-
20
line religious forces could rise against his military junta,” Time, Oct.1 On the Edge). At
the same time, the army, whose chief commander is Musharraf, was portrayed as the only
stable institution in the country.
Musharraf’s remaining in power was interpreted both as the best interest of the
United States in the region (“it may be a good thing for the antiterror coalition that
Pakistan is ruled by a friendly military dictatorship, rather than what could be a hostile
democracy,” Newsweek, Oct.22, A Fine Balance) and as the best interest of the global
community in general because Pakistani president was presented as the only guarantee
that his country will not use nuclear weapons (“As long as Musharraf stays in charge, the
weapons are well nailed down. (…) [I]f power should fall into the hands of extremist
factions the situation could change fast,” Time, Nov. 12, Osama’s Nuclear Quest).
The Pakistani leader was also portrayed as reliable and obedient in terms of the
Western interests in South Asia (“Musharraf fell smartly in line with Bush doctrine,”
Newsweek, Jan. 14, Stop Crossing the Lines). Less salient were the arguments that
Pakistani leader’s preserving of power is positive for his own country because of the
“pro-democratic” political course he is taking (“it’s now less likely anyone inside the
military can sabotage or ignore Musharraf’s pro-Western policies, leaving him freer to
pursue his goal of transforming Pakistan into a progressive state”, Time, Oct. 22, The
World’s Toughest Job; “Musharraf seems to be singlehandedly shifting his country’s
course”, Newsweek, Jan. 28, This Time It’s Personal.) Finally, Musharraf’s publicly
stated intention to remain the president of Pakistan regardless of the results of the
democratic elections in October 2002 was reported in the newsmagazines but it did not
become a part of the frame.
21
Summary/Discussion
The study analyzed the U.S. newsmagazines’ framing of the role of Pakistani
leader Pervez Musharraf from September 11, 2001, to the end of February 2002. The
U.S. newsmagazines framed Musharraf as a “strong Western ally.” The four thematic
points that the U.S. newsmagazines constructed in order to “fix” the frame of Musharraf
may be attributed to two major determinants: the overall frame of the West versus Islam
that is often used in the Western media when covering Islamic countries and the political
stance of the U.S. government toward Pakistan after the September 11 attacks.
Both of these two determinants can be traced in the first thematic point that
portrayed Musharraf’s regime as a “mild dictatorship” that performs a lot of functions of
a true democracy. Titles such as “military ruler” or “general” were used instead of the
more negative, yet accurate term “dictator.” The newsmagazines emphasized the
importance of those Musharraf’s political moves that yielded to the U.S. interest in the
region, while the issues of human rights in Pakistan were completely omitted from the
frame. Dictatorship was presented as a normal and even desirable state for a chaotic
country such as Pakistan.
Unstated yet understood was the notion that at a time of crisis, such as the War on
Terror, the partnership with Pakistan was an indispensable solution, although it clearly
contradicted the rhetoric division of the democratic versus the undemocratic regimes
created in the speeches of the U.S. President George Bush. These findings are compatible
with the earlier research on the U.S. media coverage of the “friendly” undemocratic
regimes during the Cold War era, as explained in the works of Herman and Chomsky
(1988) and Parenti (1993.)
22
The second thematic point portrayed Musharraf as a leader whose personal
experience somewhat pertains to the Western culture. His pets, his mother’s education
and even his clothes became the metaphors of his underlying “Westernness.” While the
economic and political benefits, such as financial aid, debt relief and improved
international status, were often repeated as rational causes of Musharraf’s support to the
United States, the allusions to his “Westernness” appeared sporadically, but consistently.
This thematic could be contextualized within an overall West versus Islam frame,
as explained in the works of Said (1997) and Karim (1999). When opposed to the
“Islamic” characteristics of the “militants” and “fundamentalists,” Musharraf’s pro-
Western features made him different from his “dangerous” and “militant” Islamic
surrounding, less “alien” to the Western culture and, eventually, more acceptable as a
dictatorial ally of the United States.
The third thematic point constructed the “Islamic fundamentalists” in a canonic
way that is often present in the Western media coverage of Muslim countries. The
protesters against Musharraf’s partnership with the United States were portrayed in a
depersonalized manner, as an “angry Muslim mob.” The descriptions of their “rifle-
wielding,” “opium-high,” irrational behavior reinforced their “otherness.” The U.S.
newsmagazines offered only one explanation for protests of the Pakistanis against the
partnership between Pakistan and the United States: they were “Islamic fundamentalists.”
This theme confirmed the existence of the West versus Islam frame, which,
according to the works of Said (1997) and Karim (1999,) replaced the Cold War frame in
the Western media. The stereotypical portrayals of Islam performed two functions. They
emphasized the difference between Islam and the West and widened the gap between the
23
“secular-minded,” “pro-Western” Pakistani leader Pervez Musharraf and his
“fanaticized,” Islamic nation.
The fourth thematic point constructed Musharraf as the only warranty of peace in
the region by forming a binary solution: either Musharraf will stay in power or the
“Islamic fundamentalists” will take over the country. The “Islamic threat” was described
as dangerous not only to the U.S. interests in South Asia but to the global community in
general because of the potential threat of nuclear weapons.
Conclusions
The findings of this study lead to the conclusion that in the recent U.S. media
coverage of the Pakistani leader Pervez Musharraf, the Cold War frame that was used in
the 1980s merged with the West versus Islam frame. The U.S. government rhetoric on
the War on Terror divided the world into “allies” and “enemies,” in a way similar to the
earlier division of the “communist” versus “democratic” regimes. In the recent division,
greatly defined through the speeches of the American President George W. Bush, most of
the countries that are considered to be “terrorist” and “enemies” are Muslim societies.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf was framed in a way similar to the U.S.
media coverage of the United States’ undemocratic allies in South America in the 1980s
(Parenti, 1993; Bailey, 2000.) The negative features of his dictatorship were soothed
through the usage of justifications and patterns of omission. He was framed as a firm
leader who protects the interests of the United States in the region. At the same time,
many issues of importance for his own country, such as human rights or the restoration of
democracy, were omitted from the frame.
24
On the other hand, the existence of the West versus Islam frame (Said, 1997;
Karim, 2000) may explain why the U.S. newsmagazines continuously emphasized
Musharraf’s pro-Western features. The newsmagazines used several Musharraf’s
biographical and personal characteristics as metaphors of his “Westernness,” which made
him different from his nation of “fundamentalists” and less alien to the West.
Suggestions for Further Research/Limitations
The most obvious limitation of this research is the short period of the media
coverage observed. The research on the U.S. newsmagazines’ coverage of Pakistani
president’s role after the September 11 attacks would benefit from a comparative study.
A possible course would be comparing the U.S. media coverage of Pervez
Musharraf in the post-September 11 period with the coverage of dictatorial leaders in
several other countries at the same period of time. The sample of countries chosen should
examine whether the differences in the media across dimensions such as “Muslim” and
“non-Muslim,” “developed” and “undeveloped,” and “enemies” and “allies” influenced
the construction of Musharraf’s role.
The second path could be comparing the coverage of the Pakistani leader after the
September 11 attacks with the coverage of Musharraf in the period when his partnership
with the United States was still unstable. This comparison could reveal whether the
forming of a new partnership between the United States and Pakistan in September 2001
influenced the U.S. media coverage.
25
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Endnotes:
1
This document also reports that Musharraf banned “honor” killings, presented a reform program to fight
corruption and a human rights agenda that focused on the protection of women, children and minorities. On
the other hand, his military government banned political activities in public and “dozens of political
activists were arrested for breaches of the ban.” Some members of the previous government, such as the
former minister for information, continued to be detained without charge or trial; dozens of activists and
others were detained without charge or trial, and many such detainees were tortured; torture in police
custody and jails led to at least 25 deaths; abuses of children in custody continued.
2
Freedom House is a non-partisan organization concerned with the protection of human rights and
democracy around the world. Since 1972 Freedom House has published annual assessments of the state of
freedom by assigning each country or territory the status of “free,” “partly free” or “not free,” based upon
sources such as news reports, think tanks, academic analysis and NGO publications.
3
According to Freedom House reports, over the next 30 months Sharif repealed the president’s
constitutional power to dismiss governments, forced the resignations of the chief justice of the Supreme
Court and of an army chief, and cracked down on the press and nongovernmental organizations. See:
http://www.freedomhouse.org/research/freeworld/2001/countryratings/pakistan.htm
4
see: http://www.paknews.com; http://www.pak.gov.pk
5
Common sense is defined as the process in which “elite discourses become disconnected from their social
and historical origins,” so that the society “collectively ‘forgets’ that the meanings promoted by these
discourses are socially constructed” (Tucker, 1998, p. 144.)
6
One of the examples that Parenti uses is the portrayal of Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi in The New York
Times as an “independent and popular national leader” who supports a moderate, democratic course, “a
man of royal bearing” and “a leader with whom both president F.W. deKlerk and Nelson Mandela must
reckon” (p.178.) Parenti argues that in reality Buthelezi persecuted the supporters of the oppositional ANC,
tolerated no opposition parties or dissent, and secretly collaborated with the apartheid regime and the
military. Similar is the example of the former dictator of the Philippines, president Ferdinand Marcos, who
has been portrayed in the press “as America’s staunch ally and defender of democracy.” Shortly after
Marcos fell out of favor of the US foreign policy, the US media started publishing discrediting stories
about his past, pointing out his economic monopoly, and he was finally framed as a tyrant.
7
According to the International Federation of the Periodical Press report for 2001/2002, Time is sixth,
Newsweek is eleventh, and U.S. News & World Report is fourteenth on the list of top 50 general interest
magazines in the world, which makes them the three best-selling U.S. newsmagazines.
31

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Framing a Friendly Dictator: U.S.

Newsmagazine Coverage of Pakistani

barbarians, and a fight of the democratic against the undemocratic.

be made up with terrorist organizations” (CNN.com, February 18, 2002.)

This clear rhetorical division of “democratic” versus “non-democratic” and

the developing events—Pakistan.

In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, Pakistan obtained a crucial role in

According to the 2001 report of Amnesty International, Pakistan is not a free

country. In the annual report on Pakistan (Amnesty International, 2001), Amnesty

Another non-governmental organization, Freedom House,2 describes Pakistan as

the September 11 attacks.

Determinants of the coverage of Pakistan in the U.S. press

Pakistan and the United States

replace Benazir Bhutto, who was discredited by corruption scandals.3

was returning to Karachi on a commercial flight when Sharif’s government suddenly

for democratic elections.

According to the Pakistani News Service, which describes itself as a non-partisan

and participated in the Third India-Pakistan war in 1971 as a Company Commander.

Pakistan in June 2001.

In an attempt to assess Musharraf’s rule, Constable (2001) states that military’s

attempt to reform major societal institutions in Pakistan without a legitimate mandate is

Islam in a post-Cold war frame

As a country whose population is 97 % Muslim, Pakistan is covered in the media

misrepresentation of facts to blatant examples of cultural prejudice. According to Said,

previously explained in Orientalism, one of the seminal works in this field.

as dangerous to Western interests. Throughout a long period of misusage, the

“Islamicness” of certain actions became a self-explanatory denominator that denotes a

coverage of Islam, therefore, irretrievably attribute negative meanings to one whole

Critical perspective of the U.S. media coverage of the international news

almost as much as than the event itself.

hierarchy of nations (which includes geographic size, population, economic development,

language, amounts of migration among countries or amount of intermarriage,) economic

ethnocentrism, altruistic democracy, responsible capitalism, small-town pastoralism,

individualism, moderatism, social order, and national leadership.

suggest a model of concentric circles. According to that framework, personal attitudes

from other sources” (p.150).

coverage of “friendly” or “client” regimes, such as military dictatorships in Latin

like “the country’s strongman,” “tough,” “severe,” “firm,” “no-nonsense,” and

Entman (1993) defines framing as a fractured paradigm, a theory that needs to be

reconstructed and synthesized in order to avoid casual definitions. Entman suggests a

broad definition of framing by saying:

important, yet often ignored.

catchphrases, (4) depictions, and (5) visual images.

In an attempt to define framing more precisely, Scheufele (1999) proposes a

perspective of this research is Scheufele’s notion of media frames as dependent variables,

Reese (2000) views framing as a possible solution for the methodological

social world” (p.11).

Coverage of political leaders

Not many studies focus on media coverage of political leaders

predominantly negative. Using Entman’s (1993) definition of the four functions of a

suggested that the threat should be immediately eliminated.

organizations, such as Amnesty International, showing the increase of human rights

news coverage in general” (p. 165).

According to the critical/cultural studies research, the U.S. media coverage of

selective usage of sources and consistent patterns of omission.

newsmagazines after he became an American ally in September 2001?

remedies that are supposed to resolve problems are suggested.

interpretive, in-depth manner.

frame, as defined by Entman (1993).

fundamentalists” with the “reasonable” and “pro-Western” stance of the Pakistani

Pakistan demands that Musharraf should stay in power.

Closet liberal in a dictator’s suit

The U.S. newsmagazines depicted Musharraf as a relatively mild, pro-Western