Layalina Productions | Press Review II.26

According to a Washington Times article, two-thirds of Foreign Service officicers who volunteered for posts in Iraq were unqualified. The State Department has reportedly been offering more incentives to fill the remaining vacancies, and assignments to other foreign missions are on hold until the posts in Iraq have been filled. Enhanced benefits include preferred consideration for future assignments, more generous home leave and "enhanced promotion consideration." Some diplomats say, however, that many who applied for the positions never got a reply from human resources. A Government Accountability Office report earlier this year found staff shortages were impeding the department's ability to carry out stabilization and reconstruction efforts.

Officials from human resources in the Bureau of Near East Affairs said that some applicants "did not have the skills required for these positions or relevant previous experience." Other volunteers had "partial skills" and were approved after they received additional training. Language and culture skills, though important, are not a guarantee to obtain a position.

According to the Times, the topic has become so sensitive that none of the officials interviewed for the article agreed to speak on the record.

W. Robert Pearson, Former Director General of the Foreign Service called the article a "gross distortion of the reality of the readiness of State Department personnel to serve in Iraq" in a letter to the editor, also published by the Washington Times. Pearson attributes reports of vacancies to the rolling application process that the department uses and stresses that positions are filled almost every time "when the time comes." Pearson says that there have been more people asking to serve in Iraq than available positions and that the rejection of some applications should not entail the characterization of those applicants as "unready" and imply that the department is not doing its part.

Pearson also criticizes the description of the compensation package as an incentive, saying that the package was adjusted to accurately reflect the hardship, degree of risk, and adverse impact on families that service in Iraq brings.

Pearson concludes, "Thousands of patriotic American civilians, including State Department civil servants and Foreign Service Officers and personnel, have continued to risk their lives to try to build a better Iraq. My request would be that you concentrate more on those who bear the responsibility for what happened rather than on those who have tried to do something about it."

The World Association of Newspapers (WAN) sponsored a conference entitled "Media in Danger – Pressure Under Seige" in Beirut on the one year anniversary of the assassination of Lebanese MP Gibran Tueni, formerly General Manager of the leading Lebanese Daily An-Nahar. The Daily Star covered the event, which focused on the difficulties that Arab journalists face today. Participants from throughout the region discovered that many face the same problems of harassment, censorship and arrest, and that opposition movements, as well as governments, instigate these hardships. Participants also debated on which group poses a greater threat to the pursuit of freedom of the press: despotic secular governments, or the Islamist groups that oppose them.

Over 3,000 persons attended the opening of the conference, and speakers included: Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora; Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri; Nayla Tueni, daughter of Gibran Tueni; David Ignatius, Associate Editor of the Washingon Post; and New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman.

WAN also sponsors the Arab Press Development project, which encourages exchange between the newspapers of the region and supports them in implementing commercial and editorial strategies.

Bassel Hatoum, correspondent for the Lebanese television channel New TV faces another kind of danger. Hatoum was arrested along with his cameraman, for breaking and entering into the sealed apartment of Mohammed Zuhair Siddiqi, a key figure in the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq Al-Hariri. Prosecutor Said Mirza called Hatoum's actions an "obvious crime that breaches all media ethics and conventions."

Meanwhile, Arab Media Watch has sharply criticized the Associated Press (AP) for consistently reporting a Lebanese death toll from last summer's war with Israel that is on average 30% lower than the toll published by other organizations. AP continues to place the number of dead at 850, while other counts by the Lebanese Higher Relief Council and the Lebanese police place the number at about 1100. Other sources such as the United Nations, Amnesty International, the International Medical Center, Reuters, and Agence France Presse report a number closer to the estimate of Lebanese authorities. AP says that they are looking into the issues and will have more information in the coming weeks.

Kuwaiti Information Minister Mohammed Al-Sanousi resigned one day before he was scheduled to face questioning in the National Assembly, reports the Kuwait Times. Speaker of the National Assembly Jassem Al-Khorafi praised Al-Sanousi's actions as an effort to defuse tensions between the National Assembly and the government. Al-Sanousi is the second minister to leave in the past 18 months. His predecessor, Anas Al-Reshaid, stepped down in protest of a government plan to amend the constitution in the midst of a crisis over proposals to reduce the number of electoral districts.

Al-Sanousi faced harsh criticism because of a crackdown he initiated on local satellite television channels that broadcast interviews with opposition figures in the run-up to the most recent elections.

"What the information minister did was against the principles of freedom, and against the constitution that guarantees freedom of speech, expression and publication," said Islamist lawmaker Faisal Al-Muslim.

According to Kuwait Times, Al-Sanousi's resignation is a typical reaction in an attempt to avoid ministerial questioning.

William McKenzie of the Dallas Morning Newsrecently spoke to Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Karen Hughes to learn more about her agenda. Hughes stated in her interview with McKenzie that she has several objectives that she hopes to accomplish.

First, she wants to improve training for diplomats to enable them to understand the role religion plays in the current political landscape. When Hughes initially proposed courses that educate diplomats on Islam, she was met with complaints that she was trying to mix church and state. She rejects this idea, saying it would be a mistake not to recognize the role faith plays in people's lives. Hughes also wants American officials to respond to persons in the media that claim there is a war between Islam and the West without the fear of internal criticism.

Hughes also promotes the idea of transformational democracy, encouraging ambassadors to be the voice of America instead of the quiet deliverer of messages between governments in order to engage the public in a country. She also suggests that embassies reach out to people with influence within the local community and build relationships with them.

Acknowledging that she is not the most credible voice as a Christian woman, Hughes also wants to promote citizen dialogue, sending US citizens who can understand both sides of a cultural divide to make outreach programs more effective, particularly to Muslim communities.

In pursuing all of these goals, Hughes hopes to engage moderate Muslims in order to encourage mainstream voices to speak out and explain that their faith is one of tolerance.

Dr. R.S. Zaharna, assistant professor at the American University's School of Communications writes that US public diplomacy needs an overhaul to counter a deficit of "global proportions" in a commentary on Foreign Policy in Focus's Public Diplomacy Strategic Dialogue.

Zaharna calls for more creative relationship building, matching policy decisions with viable communications options, and the coordination of traditional and public diplomacy initiatives. In her observation, since the attacks of 9/11, the US has been preoccupied with designing and delivering messages, presuming a lack of information, or an abundance of misinformation about US policies, values and positions. Zaharna deems this inaccurate: the problem, she says, lies in a lack of credibility as opposed to a lack of information, and that without credibility, soft power cannot attract and influence others.

Listening should be a basic element to public diplomacy, she writes. It is necessary to comprehend and reflect on what the other party is saying in order to maintain productive relationships and achieve desired objectives. Listening without credibility is dangerous, according to Zaharna, because it can be perceived as gratuitous and insincere.

In order to make US public diplomacy more strategic, Zaharna believes the first step is to match US policy with viable communication options, and assess red flag policies that contradict US values or negatively affect the public. She suggests that more communication in a political environment where US policy contradicts its values tends to heighten perceptions of duplicity.

"Strategic communication is knowing when and where to turn the volume up – or down – as not to inadvertently fuel anti-Americanism and reduce US credibility," she writes.

Zaharna also emphasizes the importance of relationship-building, calling for the establishment of relationship building campaigns, and non-policy networks.

Finally, Zaharna encourages a "reconciliation" of US public diplomacy and traditional diplomacy. She believes that the focus on public diplomacy since the 9/11 has been almost to the exclusion of traditional diplomacy. She cites the stalled peace process between Israel and the Palestinians as an example of this imbalance.

The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) published The Arab Human Development Report 2005: Towards the Rise of Women in the Arab World, on December 7. The report, which is the final in a four-part series, examines the life of women in the Arab world, focusing on issues such as health, education, and political participation.

The report suggests that the role of women in the Arab world is in a period of reform, particularly by way of new forms of media that have emerged in the region. It states, "Contemporary media forms such as the Internet, chat rooms, satellite television channels and their specialized programs are based on the power of open public dialogue, quick communication and accessible communities of thought and practice. For women, [these new forms of media] open up a new avenue of liberation that allows them to occupy spaces that they could not have entered through the conventional print media."

Though these strides are being made, the report adds that "In private life, traditional patterns of upbringing and discriminatory family and personal-status laws perpetuate inequality and subordination." The report continues, "In public life, cultural, legal, social, economic and political factors impede women's equal access to education, health, job opportunities, citizens' rights and representation."

The website Iraqslogger.com, launched this week, seeks to be "the world's premier Iraq-focused [nonpartisan] information source," according the site's founder, Eason Jordan, former CNN news division chief.

Jordan explains that the site's name was inspired by a Donald Rumsfeld reference to this war being a “long, hard slog.”

According to Editor and Publisher, the site features editorials and articles from US papers, news articles from Iraqi newspapers, jokes on Iraq and articles overlooked by US media, such as Iraq's addiction to the television show "Lost".

Iraqslogger.com recently reported on War News Radio, a half-hour weekly radio show produced by students at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. The radio show focuses on the life of Iraqi citizens amidst the conflict and has covered such stories as the Iraqi gay community and the current process of school enrollment and uses Skype internet phone technology to garner interviews from Iraqi citizens.

Jordan says IraqSlogger.com will be followed by IraqSafetyNet, a premium, subscription-only service that aims to provide intelligence and security tips to employers of people in war zones.

Another website on the Middle East launched this week. The site www.snd20.org , which centers on newspaper design in the Middle East and Africa, launched on December 12. Created by Douglas Okasake, Regional Director for t he Society of News Design, the website will to compile and distribute newspaper design information across the region.

Okasaki says the website will show "what [people in the Middle East] think about design. Most concepts and design come from Western countries, but they have little information about the work newspaper designers are doing in other parts of the world, especially in the Middle East and in particular the UAE. It is our duty to enlighten them about this region and introduce them to our way of thinking."

American higher education institutions, including Boston University and University of Missouri, are competing to open a branch of their journalism schools in Qatar. The Qatar Foundation, which is subsidized by Qatar's government, is currently selecting top universities to take residence in Qatar's Education City to create a graduate and undergraduate journalism program. The Qatar Foundation provides multimillion dollar contracts to hire faculty and staff and free, state-of-the-art facilities.

The Arab American Institute Foundation (AAIF) announced a journalism scholarship program for Arab-American students this week. The Al Muammar Scholarships for Journalism offers four $5,000 grants, for Arab-American college students who are majoring in journalism. AAIF Executive Director Helen Samhan said, “Our young generation has so much talent, energy and cultural perspective to offer. The country at large will benefit from more Arab-Americans entering careers in journalism and public affairs."

New vocational training programs to develop the field of communications and media are underway in some parts of the Arab world. Yemen launched the largest media training program in the Middle East on December 9. The program partners the Mass Communication Training and Qualifying Institute in Yemen with the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle to provide intenseive professional training to two Yemeni television channels and various radio stations over the next two years.

The Middle East Public Relations Association (MEPRA) opened the first public relations training college in the Middle East on December 12 to improve standards of professionalism in the area of public relations. MEPRA partnered with the British International Communications Consultancy Organization to create the program. Online classes will debut in January, followed by classroom courses in March.

On December 14, "correspondent" Samantha Bee, in a segment for Comedy Central's The Daily Show, visited Al-Jazeera English's bureau in Washington D.C. to offer advice on how the broadcaster can obtain a larger American audience, somewhere above its current rating of "Al-Ja-Zero." She comically names herself an "Al-Ja-Hero," and helps anchor Dave Marash to Americanize his segways, eliciting him to say "Coming up next, immigrants: are they stealing your blonde daughters?"

Arab directors are tackling racial prejudice with humor in new films and television shows.

According to The New York Times, " Little Mosque on the Prairie," a sitcom premiering January 9 on Canada's CBC explores "the funny side of being a Muslim and adapting to life in post 9/11 North America." The series explores some of the compromises immigrant parents make as their children assimilate, such as turning Halloween into "Halal-oween." The show's creator, Zarqa Nawaz, uses her personal experiences as the show's basis.

Arab-American filmmaker Raouf Zaki's also uses his own experiences to create much of the content for his new short comedy “Just Your Average Arab,” which began screening in Framingham, MA on December 13. The comedy follows a convenience store clerk who gathers a group of Arab-Americans for a tutorial on how to seem more American. Two of Zaki's experiences that appear in the film include his meeting Arab-Americans trying to Americanize their names by changing them from Hamed to Moe, and his experience of being offered only terrorist roles in films. Though Zaki chooses to fight sterotypes with film, he finds "there isn't really an Arab-American film community yet, which is unfortunate because we really need films that demystify Arab culture right now."

The representation of Middle Eastern characters in the entertainment industry was discussed at the 3 rdDubai International Film Festival's panel discussion entitled " Operation Cultural Bridge," held last week.

Part of the discussion went as follows:
On whether characters have been misrepresented, director Oliver Stone said, "I think that you can say the same thing for the Chinese or the Jewish or the blacks. I think that any minority can feel threatened by Hollywood. Hollywood has become a synonym for the monster and I think that's unfair."

Actor Richard Gere elaborated, "The storytelling, almost by its nature is very cynical. So essentially the villain of the piece is whoever the villain on the planet is at that moment. Obviously the Russians were at one point, the Japanese were at another, the Germans were at another point."

Bashar Da'as, a Palestinian actor looking for work in Los Angeles, commented that "the only roles open to Arabs are the terrorist parts and if it's not a terrorist then it’s a role that de-humanizes Arabs and Muslims and that’s even worse."

Stone asserted, "If we want to make a film about China or Turkey or wherever, we have to have a Western protagonist to kick it off … You cannot make a movie about any subject without a Western protagonist. It is a major problem. But it's not just in America, it's everywhere."

A new report, "Satellite TV in the Arab World 2006," by the Arab Advisors Group states that the total number of number of free to air (FTA) satellite channels reached 264 in October 2006, indicating a growth of 163% from January 2004, and that over 90% of the FTA satellite channels in the region include programs in Arabic.

In the report, Ms. Lina Juma, Arab Advisors Research Analyst, asserts, “The gulf countries host the highest number of Arab FTA satellite channels encompassing close to half of the total channels targeting the region. The Levant and North Africa regions respectively follow the GCC with a small difference between them.”

Mary Kallaher, Vice President and Country Manager of Emerging Markets for Discovery Networks Europe said, "Viewers on the Orbit platform will now be able to enjoy Discovery Channel's wide range of award-winning programming specifically tailored to reflect the local tastes and preferences of viewers in the Middle East."

On Orbit, the Discovery Channel and Discovery Science will be programmed 24 hours a day in English and subtitled in Arabic.

[1] Izzak, B. December 17, 2006. "Sanousi makes back door exit." Kuwait City: Kuwait Times.
Oteifa, Nancy. December 17, 2006. "Information Ministry employees sigh in relief with Sanousi out." Kuwait City: Kuwait Times.
[2] Austin, Page. December 12, 2006. "Arab journalists describe 'work under siege.'" Beirut: The Daily Star.
Ghazal, Rym. December 16, 2006. "News agency draws fire for suspect count of Lebanese war dead." Beirut: The Daily Star.
The Daily Star. December 21, 2006. "Charges laid in break-in at flat of Hariri Witness." Beirut.
The Daily Star. December 20, 2006. "New TV crew held for alleged break-in." Beirut.
World Association of Newspapers. December 13, 2006. "Conference in Beirut Honors Slain Journalists." Paris.
[3] Kralev, Nicholas. December 14, 2006. "Bidders unready for jobs in Iraq." Washington, DC: The Washington Times.
[4] McKenzie, William. December 12, 2006. " William McKenzie: For Karen Hughes, it's still hearts and minds ." Dallas: The Dallas Morning News.
McKenzie, William. December 12, 2006. "Karen Hughes, Q & A: Public diplomacy in real time." Dallas: The Dallas Morning News.
[5] Zaharna, R.S. December 13, 2006. "The US credibility deficit." Washington, DC: Foreign Policy in Focus.
[6] Aarif, Kafah. December 6, 2006. "Arab Human Development Report," London: BBC.
Bew, Geoffrey. December 13, 2006. "Bahraini women 'making a mark.'" Manama: Gulf Daily News.
[7] Mitchell, Greg. December 13, 2006. "Former CNN News Chief to Launch 'IraqSloggger' Site." New York: Editor and Publisher.
Shen, Anna. December 14, 2006. "US Students Produce 'War News Radio.'" Iraqslogger.com.
Ameinfo.com. December 12, 2006. "Regional website about newspaper design in Middle East and Africa." Dubai.
[8] Arabjournalists.blogspot.com. December 14, 2006. "Arab Journalism Scholarship Launched."
Vaznis, James. December 8, 2006. "BU vies to open satellite campus in Qatar." Boston: The Boston Globe.
[9] Al-Ghabiri, Ismael. December 9, 2006. "Largest media training program in the Middle East launched." Sana'a: Yemen Times.
Albawaba.com. December 14, 2006. "MEPRA opens region's first dedicated public relations training college." Dubai.
[10] Comedy Central. The Daily Show. December 14, 2006. ifilm.com
[11] Bishara, Motez. December 17, 2006. "Bid to unravel "bad Arab" cliché." Dubai: AlJazeera.net.
Kuwait News Agency. December 20, 2006. "Media experts underline role of Arab TV channels in fighting terrorism." Kuwait.
Macfarquhar, Neil. December 7, 2006. "Sitcom's Precarious Premise: Being Muslim Over Here." New York: The New York Times.
Taylor, Denise. December 17, 2006. "Arab-American tackles bias with humor, film." Boston: The Boston Globe.
[12] Press Release. December 7, 2006. Amman: Arab Advisors Group.
[13] AMEinfocom. December 17, 2006. "Discovery Channel added to Orbit channel lineup." Dubai. l

*The views expressed here are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Layalina Productions, Inc.

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