Moez Masoud is a 27-year-old Egyptian who hosts his own English-language Islamic talk shows, Parables from the Quran and Stairway to Paradise, on the Saudi-owned ART satellite network. With several new TV contracts in the works, including the possibility of a show on an American channel, the handsome young economics graduate …

Islamists have been some of the most ardent foes of reality programs on Arab television, forcing MBC’s Al Ra’is (Big Brother) off the air and staging protests or boycotts against LBC’s Star Academy and Al Wadi (The Farm). But now it seems at least some Islamists have decided to adopt a different approach: If you can’t …

The nondescript redbrick building housing Alhurra's state-of-the-art television studios lies tucked between offices for Lockheed Martin and Boeing just outside Washington, DC. Although it boasts an arsenal far different from that of its neighbors, the location of the US-funded Arabic satellite channel, at the heart of the military industrial complex, …

It has been a year and a half since US-funded Arabic satellite channel Alhurra started broadcasting on 14 February 2004. Even before the channel's launch, it was a magnet for controversy -- many in the Arab media denounced it as propaganda while some Washington insiders questioned the decision to spend …

Hafiz Al Mirazi is the Washington bureau chief of Al Jazeera and host of the channel's weekly program, From Washington, which spearheaded Al Jazeera's coverage of US elections in 2004. TBS's deputy managing editor Lindsay Wise interviewed Al Mirazi about Al Jazeera's strategy for covering the US presidential race and Arab media interest in …

20 November 2004, Cairo Ahmad al-Farrag is one of the pioneers of religious television broadcasting in the Arab world. His long-running program Nur ala Nur, or "Light Upon Light" was the first of its kind in Egypt and a model for future religious talk shows. It also was the first …

In the aftermath of the attacks of September 11, 2001, renewed fears about the threat of "Islamic Fundamentalism" conjured images of bearded and turbaned zealots spoiling for holy war against the West. More than three years later, such stereotypes seem confirmed in the grim reality of the morning's headlines, as …