Double Standards in the Media: Tweet and Get Fired

July 16th, 2010 • News
Tags: CNN, double standards, Helen Thomas, lebanon, middle east, Octavia Nasr, Twitter

AJE’s Listening Post has an excellent report on the firing of CNN’s Middle East editor Octavia Nasr for Tweeting the ‘wrong’ thing…

It has been a communication tool in many a recent political protest, it is a PR tool for numerous celebrities, but for Octavia Nasr, CNN’s former Senior Middle East Affairs Editor, Twitter was a career-ender. A tweet expressing her sorrow following Lebanese Shia cleric Ayatollah Fadlallah’s death set off a storm amongst many conservative and pro-Israel groups in America.

Sheikh Fadlallah’s opposition to Israel’s occupation of South Lebanon, his ties with Hezbollah and his designation as a terrorist by the US government made him hugely controversial in the US. But Ms. Nasr’s tweet was a reflection of the respect Sheikh Fadlallah commanded in Lebanon and the wider Arab world for his spiritual learning, his advocacy for women’s rights and the influence he had over so many.

CNN was not willing to accommodate the nuances of the Ayatollah’s persona in its assessment of Ms. Nasr’s offending tweet. In our News Divide this week we look at what the firing of Ms. Nasr reveals about CNN and the editorial limitations of reporting in the American media.

This comes not long after veteran Whitehouse correspondent Helen Thomas had to resign over something she said…

The EU’s role in the Middle East

March 16th, 2010 • Film & Documentary, News
Tags: al jazeera, EU, inside story, israel, middle east, palestine

from Al Jazeera’s Inside Story:

Striving to make the European Union relevant to the Middle East peace process, Catherine Ashton, the new EU foreign policy chief, visits the region.

Beginning her trip in Egypt on Monday, she is scheduled to visit Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and the Palestinian territories over the course of the week.

It underscores the European Union’s efforts to better engage in the Middle East.

With an ambitious plan to meet key players in six countries, can the Europeans succeed in what the Americans have failed to achieve over decades? Will the current tension between the US and Israel help or hinder a real European role in Middle East peace process?

Inside Story is joined by Mustafa Barghouti, the general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative, Richard Youngs, the director general of Fride, a think tank focusing on EU policy. He was previously an analyst at the UK Foreign Office.

Also joining the programme is David Mack, a scholar at the Middle East Institute and a former US ambassador to the UAE.

Don’t forget to join the recent action over the EU and Israel…

Financial Times 2009: A year of Middle East editorials

January 28th, 2010 • News
Tags: 2009, FT, middle east, News, review

Just Journalism analyses the FT’s Middle East coverage, the report is divided into four sections addressing the FT editorial column’s position on:

1. Israel and the Palestinians: Leaders and efforts for peace
2. Key points of conflict: Settlements and Gaza
3. Iran: Nuclear ambitions and tensions with Israel
4. The Arab world: Regimes and peacemaking

Download and read the report here….