Adham Center News

TBS 9: Media in the Midst of War: The Sequel

Jon Alterman, who heads up the Middle East Program at Washington DC's Center for and International Studies think tank, says that the electronic journal TransnatioStrategicnal Broadcasting Studies (TBS), which is published by the Adham Center, is the best publication in its field - satellite TV broadcasting - and that TBS 9 is the best issue yet. Here is why:

While Arab satellite television news is still focused on the ongoing wars of last spring (see TBS 8)-the wars of and on terrorism, Intifada II, and the Israeli re-occupation of the West Bank-Arab TV journalists must also labor under the probable shadow of war in Iraq. That's why the lead section of TBS 9 (Fall-Winter 2002), now available at http://www.tbsjournal.com bears the title (with a nod towards Hollywood) of "Media in the Midst of War: The Sequel."

In the summer of 2002, Al-Qa'ida chose Yosri Fouda, Al Jazeera's top investigative journalist, for a unique interview with two of its most wanted leaders and gave him the first direct admission intended for public eyes and ears that, yes, they really did it. Fouda talks about that and his subsequent visit to Baghdad in a dialogue with TBS senior editor S. Abdallah Schleifer on Covering Al-Qa'ida, Covering Saddam.

Chris Cramer, CEO of CNN International, addresses the issue of how 9-11 has impacted on broadcasting in a keynote addressed to a gathering of global TV journalists who recently met in Ljubljana. Top TV journalists at the same NewsXchange conference, also went on record on the same theme-Terrorism, Patriotism and Media Coverage. TBS9 carries a full transcript of both sessions.

In an interview conducted by TBS's new Washington DC Contributing Editor Sarah Sullivan (formerly TBS managing editor), Ambassador Christopher Ross, former head of Counter Terrorism at the State Department and now Special Coordinator for Public Diplomacy there, addresses the role of broadcasting in providing or subverting a better understanding in the Arab world of American goals. TBS's new managing editor is Humphrey Davies, who writes in this issue about Arab satellite coverage of the first anniversary of 9-11.

The other cover story in TBS 9 is "MBC on the Move." Once London-based and now firmly ensconced in Dubai, MBC is about to launch two new channels-an Arabic 24- hour all-news channel that will be going head-to-head with Al Jazeera, and an English language entertainment channel whose free-to-air selection of American movies and Western entertainment will challenge the pay-TV platforms of Orbit and Showtime. S. Abdallah Schleifer visited and spoke with MBC Director-General Ali Al-Hedeithy and Head of News Salah Negm as well as a number of other MBC broadcasters and soaked up the atmosphere for his report New MBC: The Marriage of Elegant Professionalism and Emirati Glitter.

Over the past four years, the TBS Fall-Winter issue has evolved into a special report almost exclusively devoted to Arab transnational broadcasting. This year's issue is the most comprehensive yet. It includes a selection of four papers from the recent Cambridge University conference "Arab Satellite Broadcasting in the Age of Globalization" contributed by mass communication scholars Jon Alterman, Naomi Sakr, Muhammed Ayish and Abu Dhabi executive producer Jasim Al-Azzawi. Perhaps the most startling development in Arab journalism-not just television journalism-is the combined Al-Hayat and LBC News Center that editor in chief Jihad Khazen is setting up in London. In this issue, Khazen and his managing editor Salah Nemett talk with TBS about the operation.

TBS 9's comprehensive report on Arab satellite broadcasting also includes articles on Orbit's new look and new technology (including an interview with CEO Samir Abdulhadi), Noha El-Hennawy's report on ANN's financial and political problems, and Assya Y. Ahmed's account of where, when, and why Al Jazeera is in hot water again with the governments of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. Contributing editors Naila Hamdy and Chris Forrester report on the travails of Egypt's El Mehwar and ART respectively and Hassan Fattah reports from Beirut on the Arabic youth satellite channel Zen TV. Both Showtime's CEO Peter Einstein and TBS correspondent Hala Abdulrahman meditate on the impact of the latest technology on the Arab satellite market. Einstein's remarks on The Digital Dilemma were originally delivered at the MIT Arab Alumni Association's Beirut conference while Hala talked with industry leaders about On-Demand and Interactive TV.

TBS 9 also reports on new Arab satellite channels Khalifa TV and Al Madjd 2, and TBS correspondent Assya Y. Ahmed attempts to unravel the web of politics, religion, and money behind the Closing of Lebanon's Murr TV. Paola Caridi and Emanuele Giordana explore the impact of satellite TV on Arab immigrants in Italy in A Smaller Mediterranean? while Mass Comm scholars Mohammed El Nawawy and Adel Iskander develop the concept of "contextual objectivity" in their study of Al Jazeera's war coverage. Hussein Y. Amin and Tourya Guaaybess contribute scholarly studies of Arab Satellite TV's Impact on the Peace Process and on A New Order of Information respectively.

As usual there are book reviews, conference and festival reports, and a calendar of relevant upcoming events. But TBS 9 also initiates a new department - The Far Side of the Satellite - which will offer space to musings outside the main stream on the broader implications of satellite TV. S. Abdallah Schleifer inaugurates this department with thoughts on spiritual grace, the disappearance of the scribal tradition in the Arab-Islamic world, and loudspeakers.

TBS 9 - The Fall-Winter issue. At "http://www.tbsjournal.com"