Media
“Think Again, Turn Away”…from Lousy Public Diplomacy
CIA black sites. “Extraordinary rendition.” The PATRIOT Act. Massive NSA surveillance. The 2003 invasion of Iraq. Abu Ghraib. Torture. Religious and racial profiling. FBI entrapment. Drones, “kill lists” and civilian casualties. “Terror Tuesdays.” Whatever the successes of US public diplomacy sinceThe Responsibilities of the Cartoonist
Khalid Albaih is a political cartoonist “from the two countries of Sudan,” in his words, who is now based in Qatar. His drawings appear at his Facebook page, entitled Khartoon! in a play on the name of the Sudanese capital. Katy Kalemkerian and Khalid Medani spoke with him in Montreal on November 9,The Wretched Revolution
“We live in a country where liberals renege on democracy, Islamists harm Islam and human rights activists champion oppression,” an Islamic television producer cynically remarked three months after Muhammad Mursi was ousted from Egypt’s presidency in July 2013. That summer, the televised images of mu
An Interview with Mohamed Elshahed
Mohamed Elshahed is a young, dynamic architect and researcher who is documenting changes to urban space in Egypt at his highly popular blog Cairobserver [http://cairobserver.com/]. Elshahed completed a doctorate in Middle East studies at New York University and is now a postdoctoral fellow at the BeFrom the Editors (Fall 2014)
In the last week of August, after several false starts, a ceasefire finally halted the summertime slaughter in Gaza. Israel’s bombs stopped falling, Palestinians stopped dying and the world media stopped its round-the-clock coverage. And, just like that, Gaza was again yesterday’s news.Another Benghazi
“We didn’t want another Benghazi.” Oh no, is that really why the Obama administration decided to bomb Iraq [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/09/world/middleeast/fear-of-another-benghazi-drove-white-house-to-airstrikes-in-iraq.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=LedeSum&module=a-lede-package-rCovering the Coverage
Three weeks into Israel’s military campaign against Gaza, media and observers are turning the lens inward on the coverage itself. NBC was the focus of the conversation after the network recalled its correspondent in Gaza, Ayman Mohyeldin, shortly after he filed a powerful report on the killing of foBeneath the Gray Lady’s Flak Jacket
The New York Times is the most prestigious of the prestige press in the United States. The famed “gray lady” is the newspaper of record, a citadel of objectivity, it is said, where the first draft of history is crafted. It sets the agenda for other newspapers, for the broadcast news programs and eveJudging the Judge
On July 2, 16-year old Palestinian Mohammed Abu Khdeir was abducted, beaten and burned alive, apparently by a group of Jewish Israelis [http://www.timesofisrael.com/suspects-arrested-in-killing-of-east-jerusalem-teen/]. News of this “torture and murder by fire,” prominent American commentator Jeffre