Schleifer: How would you describe the particular challenge (as the leading global TV news agency) of providing coverage of this Gulf War? Ritchie: With this one you need to be live or very close to live. The broadcasters expect to see pictures immediately and our biggest investment before the conflict was in …

It was difficult to have more than a fleeting moment with Saleh Negm, Al Arabiya's head of news, during the first week of the war. He was dashing about, massaging into effective function a new, untried 24/7 broadcast news organization, and working 18 hours a day at it. And if …

Nart Bouran is one of the most strikingly professional people in the Arab satellite television news business. He joined Abu Dhabi TV six months ago after a two-year stint as DG at Jordan TV. Before that Bouran was with APTN in London as regional executive for the Middle East and …

The last two times I met Ali Al Ahmed he was an important executive at E-Vision, Ittesalat's cable network, which to a great degree had to struggle from within a telecom rather than competitive broadcasting culture. I was struck at the time by his vision and obvious energy that I …

In a rapidly changing world of satellite television news there is one constant - Ibrahim Helal the chief editor (news director in American parlance) of Al Jazeera, who never seems to leave the News Center and must have secretly married the channel in some arcane ceremony half a decade ago, …

Schleifer: How is Al Jazeera's coverage different from past years? Al Ali: The big difference is that with each passing day we acquire experience. This year we were able to apply our past experience by undertaking longer term and better planning-where to put our journalists, how to get into difficult, even dangerous, …

This interview with First Lieutenant Josh Rushing (U.S. Marines), a spokesman and Public Information Officer at Coalition Central Command (Centcom), was conducted by telephone on April 8,2002 and incorporates elements of an earlier interview conducted in person by TBS chief editor Schleifer, who traveled to the Gulf (Doha, Dubai, and …

Doha: There are more important TV news broadcasters based in the Dubai/Abu Dhabi sector of my quick Gulf tour (Al Arabiya, Abu Dhabi TV, Dubai Business Channel, MBC News) than in Qatar but the dynamic is all here in that curious triangle of Al Jazeera, the Coalition Central Command headquarters …

This paper was presented at a seminar on "Media and the Muslim world" held at George Washington University's Department of Religion in April 2002. Our topic-Media and the Muslim world-is broad enough to support a two-day conference and susceptible enough to change, given the nature of media and the circumstances …

Jihad Khazen has one of the most impressive track records in Arab journalism, both in Arabic and in English. Khazen was managing editor of Beirut's English-language newspaper, The Daily Star, until the civil war put that paper out of existence, then managing editor of Arab News in Jeddah, from where …