"Anyone who tells you they are not scared silly is lying,” retired Annahar publisher Ghassan Tueni, the living symbol of Lebanese media independence, said in mid-autumn as we sat in his office overlooking Beirut’s port and newly reborn downtown. “We built this glass tower as a symbol of the new Lebanon. Now …

At an August press conference early on in Egypt’s landmark race for the presidency, Mohammad Kamal, the mastermind behind the smoothly crafted reelection campaign of President Hosni Mubarak, stood before a skeptical international press corps. He had not come to sell the world on his candidate. There was no need …

Since its inception, mass media in its various forms (newspapers, radio, television, etc.) has been used as both a tool of nation-states as well as a weapon against them. The power of the press to influence opinion and help interpret reality for its constituents has created conflict over what constitutes …

Shortly after Algeria's presidential election last April, the Ministry of Communications abruptly ordered correspondents for Dubai-based broadcaster Al Arabiya and its rival, Al Jazeera, to suspend news operations in Algiers indefinitely. No convincing explanations were given, but Algerian officials had complained bitterly about Al Arabiya's election coverage and were apparently …

Edited transcript of a contribution to the Cambridge Arab Media Project conference on The Media and Political Change in the Arab World, 28-30 September, 2004 I plan to start this talk with a few theoretical observations about states and broadcasters before going on to discuss the mechanics of whether one …

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak announced in February that his country will hold its first multi-candidate presidential elections in 2005. Mubarak hopes that this "historic step," as many have deemed it, will convince outsiders and Egyptians alike that Egypt is finally leading the way to democracy in the Middle East, as …

Al-Jaber, Khalid. The Credibility of Arab Broadcasting: The Case of Al Jazeera. Doha: National Council for Culture, Arts and Heritage, 2004. Hard cover. 118 pages. ISBN: 99921-25-26-3. No price listed. Reviewed by Ralph D. Berenger Arab world academics are fascinated with the impact of Al Jazeera on viewing habits, and many studies …

In 1995, TBS senior editor and publisher S. Abdallah Schleifer presented two substantially similar papers at two different conferences a week apart--the Broadcast Education Association convention in Las Vegas and the 12th Annual Symposium of the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies (CCAS), devoted that year to "The Information Revolution in …

Panel: "Media Diplomacy: Who Controls the Control Room?" National Press Club, Washington, D.C.  5-6 October 2004 By far the most lively panel during October's annual Middle East Institute (MEI) conference in Washington, D.C., was "Media Diplomacy: Who Controls the Control Room?" featuring interesting insights from independent filmmaker Jehane Noujaim and The …