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.

Marc Lynch traces the political impact of blogging in the Middle East arguing that Arab blogs have begun to exert real leverage meriting serious attention.

In this edited version of the 11th Templeton Lecture on Religion and World Affairs, Abdallah Schleifer looks at the development of journalism in the Arab-Islamic World, attempting to explain factors shaping journalism practice in the region.

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.

There are several reasons why the new Democratic 110th Congress, the Bush administration, or both need to take a hard, new look at the American networks without delay, says Alan L. Heil Jr.

In all previous Arab-Israeli wars Israel had dominated on all counts. But in the 2006 war, the influence of the Israeli media on global opinion seemed to have been tempered by the greater range of Arab voices, argues Jihad Fakhreddine.

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.

For its willingness to take on and expose dominant elite ideologies, this book deserves real credit, argues Courtney Radsch.

"The headline is a lie. I never did stop worrying about the Middle East and my hatred for its dictators is just as virulent as ever. But one thing has changed: I no longer feel the despair and indifference borne of years reporting on the region’s leaders. And that’s thanks to blogs," says Mona Eltahawy.

‘Muhajababes’ is hardly a title most academic journals would be interested in. But to ignore this book purely because it targets a wide audience would be a grave mistake, argues Managing Editor George Weyman.