Do Arab newspapers say one thing in Arabic and another in English? Egyptian journalist Mona Eltahawy thinks so. She was a columnist for the Saudi-owned pan-Arab daily Asharq Alawsat until she was abruptly dropped last year. One reason may have been her complaints about how her articles were being edited for the Arabic edition. Here's your chance to read one of her original op-eds alongside the edited version.

We are hardly ever innocent bystanders to conflict. Merely with their presence journalists influence the parties they report on, so we are participants rather than bystanders. And our choice of what to report and how always serves certain power interests, argues Dutch journalist Joris Luyendijk.

Through the 2006 summer war in Lebanon, blogging provided an outlet for Arabs in America to vent their frustrations, anxieties and criticisms of events. It also gave many a sense of reconnecting with other Arabs around the Diaspora, says Vivian Salama.

The times, as Bob Dylan sang in another context, are a’ changin’. Across the Middle East, new television stations, radio stations and websites are sprouting like incongruous electronic mushrooms in what was once a media desert, says Co-Editor Lawrence Pintak.

When Bahrain Online founder Ali Abdulemam and his partners were arrested in February 2005 for hosting a critical United Nations human-rights report about Bahrain, fittingly enough the first to respond were colleagues in the Bahraini blogosphere, reports Luke Schleusener.

The future of political blogging in Egypt greatly depends on its fostering links with mainstream independent media, says Rania Al Malky. But what, if anything, has the blogging-led reform movement achieved to date?

During the 2006 Lebanon War, bloggers were able to influence the agenda for traditional media coverage more than ever before. But they will not overtake mainstream media anytime soon, argues Will Ward.

In late January 2006, the Fatah-controlled Palestinian government announced the closure of Hamas’ new Al Aqsa television network. The station’s demise after only a few weeks on air came as no surprise to those familiar with the tug-of-war that is Palestinian politics. Named in honor of the famous Jerusalem mosque …

Tripoli, LIBYA—Libyan borders are now open and foreign investments are quickly pouring into this oil-rich north-African country. Since the embargo was lifted almost two years ago, pipelines are being extended and new businesses are being set up every day.  It would be nice to think that such a rapid economic …

On July 4, 1953, Cairo Radio first broadcast a half-hour radio programme called The Voice of the Arabs. It included a short statement by the ostensible leader of Egypt’s recent July Revolution, General Mohammed Naguib, garnished with a great deal of anti-colonialist rhetoric.(1) The new programme was perfectly timed to take …