AKEED, Anwar Ziadat and Lana Kazkaz

Media interest in the explosion that occurred at the old grain silo building in Aqaba on Monday, 14 May 2018, was late. It specifically started with the announcement of the first death on Wednesday, 16 May. Meanwhile, monitoring conducted by the Jordanian Media Credibility Monitor (AKEED) showed weaknesses in the performance of local journalists in the governorates. The weaknesses focused primarily on dependence on official sources, publishing news without sources, not conducting investigations, and not writing in-depth reports to examine the causes of the fire in Aqaba.

The Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority (ASEZA) and other official agencies had not provided information to the media for a week. The first official statement had portrayed the incident as minor and without casualties. This created a general impression that the incident was simple and that the casualties were not more than four in stable condition. Withholding information from public opinion and the weak official response also contributed to confusing numerous media outlets and providing greater space for rumors and alternative sources on the one hand and to the relaxation of other media outlets and making them not follow such a major incident on the other.

Afterward, media interest varied with the announcement of the second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth deaths due to the fire, which was initially attributed to the explosion of an oxygen cylinder during demolition work near the grain silos at the old port of Aqaba, causing the injury of nine people.

A Google search conducted by AKEED showed that between 14 May, when the incident occurred, and 20 May, media outlets published 248 stories, including 130 (52.41%) on Sunday, 20 May, when the public prosecutor announced convicting two companies in the incident because of the lack of safety measures. During the first six days, media outlets published 118 items (47.58%). This confirms the weak coverage in the period that preceded the decision of the public prosecutor.

The AKEED search showed that 75 news items (30.24%) out of 248 did not include sources at all. Official sources were cited in 31.04% (77 news items); parliamentary sources, 16.12% (40 news items); security sources, 8.46% (21 news items); and other sources, 14.11% (30 news items).

AKEED observed that the number of stories that relied on medical sources was not more than a handful despite the fact that medical sources are the closest to the health condition of the injured. The injured were taken to Princess Haya Military Hospital in Aqaba.

The stories published by some media outlets were simply reporting the statements of officials on their personal pages on social media sites (Facebook). Other media outlets relied on them as a source of news in regard to the health of the injured and deaths. These items included: "Riyati: Injured at Silos Clinically Dead." In this story, MP Riyati published a video clip from inside Prince Hashem Hospital in Aqaba, in which he spoke about the health condition of the injured workers. He blamed officials in Aqaba for being absent from the scene. Another story carried the headline "Questions About Incident of Aqaba Silos." It contained questions by Engineer Amer Habashneh, president of the Aqaba Engineers Association, on his Facebook page. Another website reported the death of the third worker, citing the personal page of MP Hazem Majali on Facebook.

The media gave conflicting accounts of the number of the injured and their health condition. This violates Article 9 of the Press Code of Honor, which states that "the mission of journalism requires accuracy and objectivity, and its practice requires confirming the accuracy of information and news before publishing it. Journalists must not publish unconfirmed, misleading, or distorted information." 

Dr. Abdul Mahdi Qatamin, head of the media department and official spokesman for ASEZA, told AKEED that "ASEZA was not late in announcing the incident when it occurred. It spoke about injuries. However, after there were deaths, the public prosecutor asked ASEZA not to issue statements about the details of the incident and its consequences until the causes are investigated and the responsible party is identified."

On why the local media in Aqaba failed to follow the incident, he said that "this is up to the media itself. After the order of the public prosecutor, ASEZA left the question of coverage and publishing to the media."

Answering a question on whether there was haste in the procedures to remove items at the old port, Qatamin said that "the relocation of the old port to the new port was scheduled to be completed on 1 May 2018. This is what happened, one week before the deadline. Then, the removal and demolition started. This should be completed before 1 August, which is the deadline for handing over the site to the investing company."

Khaled Fkheidhah, chief editor of Asr al Aqaba newspaper, told AKEED that local media in the city of Aqaba did not stay on top of the incident and failed to answer many questions that the public might raise about it, mainly the cause of the incident. Besides, coverage of the incident was poor.

He adds that it is difficult to obtain information. Sometimes, conflicting information plays a role in the poor coverage of the local media. For example, we could not know the health condition of the injured because they were at Princess Haya Hospital, which is a military facility. He also referred to the contradiction between official sources.

Dr. Khalaf Tahat, deputy dean of the Faculty of Mass Communication at Yarmouk University, told AKEED that the failure of the media to provide good coverage of the explosion at the grain silos in Aqaba was mainly due to "the scarcity of news sources through which the concerned agencies provide information to the media. This has created space for rumors and different opinions by the media without confirmation from primary sources because there was a delay in providing media establishments with preliminary information."

He adds: "The incident took place in Aqaba, which is far from the capital. Journalists in Amman were away from news sources at the place of the incident. This has created vacuum, which was used by social media platforms to form public opinion in an unprofessional manner that lacks accuracy and credibility."

In a telephone call by AKEED with journalist and media trainer Saad Hattar on the reasons for the failure of the media to provide good coverage of the incident of the silos in Aqaba, he said that "part of the failure is due to the priorities of the press. The media has a ceiling, which they cannot exceed. The press also focuses its attention on what it receives, and not what it seeks. This is in addition to the difficulty of access to accurate information because of withholding information. The competent agencies provide what they want to promote, and not what actually happens."