The Case For Objectivity

The Dubai-based Al-Arabiya network is pissing people off - that's a good sign:

the Palestinian Authority has demanded that Arab satellite-TV journalists refer to any Palestinian killed by the Israeli Defense Forces as "martyred." The instructions targeted the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya network, which until now had been using the politically and religiously neutral, though still adequately descriptive, adjective "dead." A PA spokesman suggested that "the Ministry of Information should be entrusted with educating these correspondents by telling them which phrases are used in our political life." (In other words: Use our terminology, or else.) To help drive the lesson home, gunmen who identified themselves as members of Yasser Arafat's ruling Fatah Party beat Al-Arabiya's Ramallah-based Palestinian correspondent Seif al-Din Shahin with their rifle butts. [Slate]

Just for emphasis.

But to the Palestinian Authority, even those who weren't actively seeking their own death are "martyrs." It would be something like the White House requiring that in the interests of the war on terror, the press henceforth refer to Sept. 11 victims, future terrorism victims, and all U.S. military casualties as "angels."

With rifle butts awaiting the noncompliant.

Al-Arabiya, the self-styled moderate alternative to Al Jazeera, is the year-old all-news satellite affiliate of the Middle East Broadcasting Co., which is owned predominantly by Saudis.

....last month, before Saddam Hussein's capture, Iraq's Governing Council, with the United States' blessing, shut down Al-Arabiya's Iraq bureau after the network aired a tape made by Saddam. To have made enemies at different ends of the political spectrum suggests that this Arab media outlet must be doing something right.

Recently I spoke with Al-Arabiya News Director Salah Nigm in MBC's offices at Dubai Media City

...."We had to break [reporters] of some habits," explained Nigm. "Like self-censorship dealing with certain topics that are always treated sensitively - some of them political issues, some religious issues."

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Article Author: Eric Olsen

Career media professional Eric Olsen is honored to be the founder and former publisher of Blogcritics.org, and former publisher of Technorati.com, which both rule. He is now editor, co-founder, and CEO of The Morton Report.

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