The Middle East is constantly evolving. So, too, Arab Media & Society. With this issue, I am handing over the publisher/co-editor reins to Hafez Mirazi, the new interim director of the Kamal Adham Center for Journalism Training and Research.
Read More »Gaza: Of media wars and borderless journalism
American television news has largely abandoned the Middle East. Can international outlets like Al Jazeera English pick up the slack? Publisher and Co-Editor Lawrence Pintak on coverage of the Gaza conflict.
Read More »BBC Arabic TV: A “unique experience” says Hosam El Sokkari
Hosam El Sokkari, the man behind the BBC's move into Arabic-language television, insists the new channel will not be the British Alhurra. So why would the British public want to spend Foreign Office money on a channel in the Arab world? Co-Editor Lawrence Pintak finds out.
Read More »Al Jazeera English election coverage: Another missed opportunity
Al Jazeera English’s election night coverage had the feel of a local college TV station, marking another missed opportunity for the channel that has yet to live up to its potential to produce true borderless journalism, writes Publisher and Co-Editor Lawrence Pintak.
Read More »Lessons worth learning: The Indonesian model
Over the last two decades an explosion of new private outlets has dramatically changed Indonesia’s media landscape, writes Publisher and Co-Editor Lawrence Pintak. What lessons does this hold for the Arab press?
Read More »The Princess and the Facebook Girl
The utopian vision of media freedom articulated by Jordan’s Princess Rym clashes with the harsh realities facing journalists around the Arab world, writes Publisher and Co-Editor Lawrence Pintak.
Read More »Taking Stock
Why was 2007 one of the deadliest years for Middle East reporters since World War II? Publisher and Co-Editor Lawrence Pintak looks back at a year of troubling trends for journalism in the region.
Read More »Beyond Media ‘Dialogues’: Time to put away the champagne flutes
Enough already with the 'media dialogues' between Arab and Western journalists. The fortunes spent on these conferences could be put to much better use in cooperative lessons-learned networks and long-term training programs, argues Publisher and Co-Editor Lawrence Pintak.
Read More »Darfur: Covering the “forgotten” story
There is no issue in Arab journalism today that is more controversial than how the region’s media cover Darfur. It is the hot-button issue in the Arab newsroom not because of the physical danger but because the issue bores right to the heart of the mission of Arab journalism and the self-identity of those who practice it, writes Publisher and Co-Editor Lawrence Pintak.
Read More »Al Arabiya Producer Nabil Kassem: Arab media are “living in denial” over Darfur
Two years on, Nabil Kassem is still profoundly affected by his experiences in Sudan. What he witnessed there, and recorded in a film he made for Al Arabiya, were scenes of unspeakable brutality and untold suffering, scenes he thought would surely wake up an Arab public all too willing to let Darfur pass by. But 'Jihad on Horseback' never made it across the airwaves. In this highly charged interview with Lawrence Pintak, Kassem speaks of how Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir prevented the broadcast of perhaps the most provocative documentary film ever made by an Arab director.
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