This House believes that Arab media needs no lessons in journalism from the West
Tuesday January 31 2006
MOTION REJECTED
by 32% to 68%
Speakers
Khaled Hroub
Speaking for the motionKhaled Hroub is the host of a weekly program on Al-Jazeera TV. He is also the Director of Cambridge Arab Media Project (CAMP) in association with the Centre of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies (CMEIS), University of Cambridge, where he previously served as visiting scholar. Before that, he worked for the Middle East Program of the International Institute of International Studies in London.
Mr. Hroub is the editor of the forthcoming book 'New Media and Politics in the Arab World' and author of 'Hamas: Political Thought and Practice'. His writings have appeared in Middle East Journal, Middle East International, Journal for Palestine Studies, Shu'un Arabyya, Critique: Critical Middle Eastern Studies, Outre terre (Paris) and Internationale Politik (Germany).
Mr. Hroub also writes for leading Arab newspapers including Al-Hayat, Al-Quds Al-Arabi and Al-Sharq Al-Awsat and publishes a weekly article that appears in the Arab daily newspapers Al-Sharq, Al-Ittihad, Al-Qahera, and Al-Dustour.
He has written for the International Herald Tribune and appears regularly on international news networks such as the BBC, Channel 4 and Sky News.
Abdallah Schleifer
Speaking against the motionAbdallah Schleifer is a veteran American journalist who covered the Middle East for more than two decades for NBC News, Jeune Afrique and The New York Times. He went on to found a center for the training of television journalists in the Arab world and has recently been appointed Al Arabiya's Washington DC bureau chief.
Following a nine year stint as NBC News Cairo bureau chief, Mr. Schleifer joined the faculty of the American University in Cairo (AUC) in1983 where he founded and has served as first director of the Adham Center for Electronic Journalism and as Distinguished Lecturer in Mass Communication. The center co-publishes with the Middle East Cent re at Oxford University the journal Transnational Broadcasting Studies - a bi-annual publication that is considered by both scholars and broadcasters to be the definitive journal for reportage and research on Arab satellite television. In the summer of 2005 Mr. Schleifer was appointed Professor Emeritus at AUC upon his retirement and he continues to serve as a senior editor of TBS.
Mr. Schleifer has been honored in both the world of journalism and scholarship. Most recently he was elected Visiting Fellow at St. Antony's College at Oxford University, which is the home of Oxford's Middle East Centre. He is honorary chairman of the Foreign Press Association in Cairo and served as its chairman during his tenure as NBC News Cairo bureau chief.
Mr. Schleifer is frequently interviewed and quoted by the BBC World Service, NPR, The New York Times, CBC, Al Ahram Weekly, The Economist and many other publications. He has contributed Op Ed pieces to leading American newspapers and has been a guest on CNN's "International Correspondent" and is a frequent panelist on the NPR program "Global Journalist." He was the executive producer of the award winning documentary "Control Room"...
Mr. Schleifer is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania in Political Studies and holds an M.A. from the American University in Beirut in Islamic Political Thought.
Marc Lynch
Speaking for the motionMarc Lynch is Associate Professor of Political Science at Williams College in the US.
He is the author of the recently published book 'Voices of the New Arab Public: Iraq, Al-Jazeera, and Middle East Politics Today'. In the book, Mr. Lynch draws on interviews conducted in the Middle East and analyses of Arab satellite television programs, newspapers, and public opinion polls to examine the nature and influence of what he sees as the new face of the Arab public.
Dr. Lynch has also authored 'State Interests and Public Spheres: The International Politics of Jordan's Identity' (1999). He has written about the Arab media and politics for Foreign Affairs, the Arab Reform Bulletin, Transnational Broadcasting Studies Journal, Middle East Report and the European Journal of International Relations. His opinion pieces have appeared in the Christian Science Monitor, International Herald Tribune, and the Daily Star among others.
Dr. Lynch maintains the Abu Aardvark blog, a running commentary on the Arab media, American public diplomacy, and Arab popular culture. He has studied Arabic both in the US and Jordan and has conducted research in Egypt, Israel and the Occupied Territories, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the UK. His research interests focus on the role of deliberation and public spheres in international relations, with a primary empirical focus on the Middle East.
Before taking up his position at Williams College, Dr. Lynch taught Middle East politics at the University of California, Berkeley, and was an instructor at the University of Wisconsin. Dr. Lynch has a PhD from Cornell University.
Mona Eltahawy
Speaking against the motionMona Eltahawy is an Egyptian-born journalist who writes a weekly column for the Arabic-language publication Asharq al-Aswat, one of the most influential publications in the Arab world. Based in New York, she also writes essays and op-eds for publications on the Middle East, women's issues and Arab and Muslim affairs. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, The New York Times, International Herald Tribune, Christian Science Monitor and The Miami Herald among others.
Ms. Eltahawy is a frequent guest analyst on US radio and television news shows. She also speaks publicly at universities, panel discussions and interfaith gatherings on the Middle East, human rights and reform in the Islamic world, feminism and post-9/11 life for Muslims and Arabs in America.
From 2002 to 2004, she was managing editor of the Arabic Women's eNews, an Arabic-language version of Women's eNews, an independent, non-profit news website that covers women's issues from around the world.
Before moving to the United States in 2000, Ms. Eltahawy was a news reporter in the Middle East for 10 years. She was a correspondent for Reuters News Agency in Cairo and Jerusalem, reported from the Middle East for the UK's The Guardian newspaper and was a stringer for US News and World Report.
Ms. Eltahawy has an M.A. in Journalism from the American University in Cairo.
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