Greenslade + Middle East

Gunmen shot and killed a young journalist at his home in Iraq in front of his family on Sunday, according to an interior ministry official.

Mazin al-Baghdadi was employed as an anchor and reporter for al-Mousiliyya TV in Iraq's northern city of Mosul.

The official said the gunmen told his father they were intelligence officers.

His killing is the sixth of a journalist in Iraq this year, according to the International Press Institute's figures. Four Iraqi journalists were killed in the whole of 2009.

IPI press freedom manager Anthony Mills said: "Iraq is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists, and the killers continue to operate with impunity."

Sources: CNN/IPI

Reuters and the International Herald Tribune are jointly launching a special supplement that will be inserted into IHT's Middle East editions on a weekly basis.

The first four-page issue of Middle East with Reuters, to be published on Thursday, will contain regional news, opinion and coverage of culture.

It will draw on the output of more than 200 Reuters journalists who cover the Middle East at a local and international level.

IHT's publisher, Stephen Dunbar-Johnson, said: "We are excited to be expanding our collaboration with Reuters to provide even more analysis and fresh insight for our readers in the Middle East.

"There is a thirst here for the IHT's brand of high quality, independent journalism as reflected in our growing circulation numbers."

IHT has a new regional headquarters in Dubai. Meanwhile, over the last 18 months, Reuters has recruited dozens of new journalists to its Middle East bureaus, doubling the amount of original Arabic-language news it produces.

The joint launch emphasises the way in which large media organisations are now prepared to team up in order to reach wider audiences.

Award-winning Lebanese journalist May Chidiac claims there is a shocking lack of freedom of expression in her country. But she refuses to be silenced.

She pledged to go on speaking her mind while being honoured on Sunday at the 60th annual International Press Institute (IPI) awards in Vienna.

Chidiac, left, was named as one of the 60 press freedom heroes for her outstanding commitment to journalism. She told the audience:

"After decades of fighting for freedom with my words, and after endless harassments, a near fatal attempt on my life left me missing an arm and a leg, and with pain that accompanies me until this day … I still carry the flame of true journalistic values with no hesitation or fear,"

Chidiac's injuries occurred when a bomb exploded in her car in 2005. At the time, she was one of the few critics of Syria's then hegemony within the Lebanon.

She spoke of three Lebanese friends who were either assassinated or survived assassination attempts "because they were defending the independence and the sovereignty of our country."

She said: "I will never be silenced... I know that despite everything, the echo of freedom will prevail over the voice of terror."

Chidiac now teaches journalism at Notre Dame University in Beirut and runs the May Chidiac Foundation, which is dedicated to promoting press freedom and media research.

Source: Daily Star

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CJP) has called on Hamas authorities in Gaza to allow three Palestinian newspapers to circulate freely in the territory.

The pro-Fatah West Bank newspapers - Al-Hayat al-Jadida, Al-Ayyam, and Al-Quds - say their staff were not allowed entry to Gaza unless they agreed to sign a document stating they would not criticise the government.

The CPJ's deputy director Robert Mahoney said: "To demand that newspapers agree not to criticise the government is an unacceptable form of censorship."

Sources: CJP/Arutz Sheva

CNN International has fired one of its senior editors after she published a Twitter message lamenting the death of a Lebanese Shi'ite cleric.

The above tweet by Octavia Nasr referred to the Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, an early mentor of the militant group Hezbollah who died in Beirut on Sunday.

Nasr, a 20-year CNN veteran based in Atlanta, departed from the channel after "a conversation" with Parisa Khosravi, a CNN senior vice president.

The channel was reported by the New York Times to have been alerted to the tweet by some supporters of Israel.

Fadlallah was also the spiritual leader of Hezbollah when it was formed after Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, though he later distanced himself from its ties with Iran.

A CNN spokesman said: "CNN regrets any offence her Twitter message caused. It did not meet CNN's editorial standards."

Nasr is quoted in a BBC report as calling her tweet "an error of judgment". She said she had been referring to Fadlallah's "pioneering" views on women's rights.

She said in a blog posting: "Reaction to my tweet was immediate, overwhelming and provides a good lesson on why 140 characters should not be used to comment on controversial or sensitive issues, especially those dealing with the Middle East."

Sources: New York Times/BBC/IFEX

In a valedictory despatch, Tim Franks yesterday explained what it was like to spend three years in the BBC's Middle East bureau being "a Jew, and a journalist."

On Radio 4's From Our Own Correspondent, he said that even before he took up his assignment his "dual identity" exposed prejudice from Jews and non-Jews.

But you need to read his full report to grasp his dilemma and his humanity. It is here on the BBC website , or you can hear him on this podcast.

Helen Thomas. Photograph: Hyungwon Kang/Reuters

Whatever one thinks of the views propounded by the (former) doyenne of the White House press corps, Helen Thomas, one of the series of punishments administered to her seems disproportionate.

Soon after the 89-year-old journalist was filmed saying that Jews should "get the hell out of Palestine" and go "home" to Germany and Poland, she lost her job. (See the video here).

As Michael Tomasky points out, it was her reference to Germany and Poland that did for her. It was, quite simply, a disgraceful, thoughtless and indefensible statement. She went way over the top.

So, despite her having issued an apology on her website, it was probably no real surprise that Hearst newspapers announced her immediate "retirement". She has had a long run, after all.

But it's the next bit of the story that concerns me. She was also dumped by her speaking agency, which issued a statement: "In light of recent events, Nine Speakers is no longer able to represent Ms Thomas, nor can we condone her comments on the Middle East."

The agency's president, Diane Nine, later emailed HuffPost to say: "We no longer represent Helen for books or lectures or anything else."

So, in the land of the free, where freedom of speech is guaranteed under the constitution, a person who expresses what are deemed to be controversial views is effectively gagged. Has Ms Nine never heard of Voltaire?

I note that Thomas was also required to step down from delivering a high school graduation speech.

I imagine it's just the beginning of a process of public, and media, exclusion for Thomas. That may be a personal problem for her (though, at her age, she may not care). But, as she would be the first to grasp, it has wider implications.

It is one of those rare occasions in which one can see clearly how people in America who are willing to express anti-establishment opinions are demonised, marginalised and finally excluded from public debate.

Did I say "people"? I mean, of course, those who are identified as liberals. Right-wing TV and radio hosts can say what they like, however outrageous. Some iconoclasts are obviously freer than others.

The Committee to Protect Journalists has denounced Israel's editing and distribution of footage confiscated from foreign journalists aboard the Gaza-bound flotilla.

The New York-based press watchdog accuses the Israeli defence force of releasing edited portions of confiscated video on YouTube that fail to get across the reality.

It refers to claims by the Foreign Press Association in Israel that the military "is selectively using footage to bolster its claims that commandos opened fire only after being attacked."

The CPJ has called on the Israeli government to return all equipment, notes, and footage confiscated from journalists.

Its Middle East and North Africa programme coordinator, Mohamed Abdel Dayem, said: "Israel has confiscated journalistic material and then manipulated it to serve its interests. It must cease this practice without delay, and return all property seized from journalists who were covering this legitimate news event."

He also complained about "the treatment meted out" to journalists as being unacceptable. "It is Israel's responsibility to conduct its operations in ways that also allow journalists to report the news," he said.

Sources: CPJ/AP

It was difficult, if not impossible, for journalists to report freely on the attack by Israeli forces on the aid ships attempting to break the Gaza blockade. But Al Jazeera's Jamal Elshayyal did manage to make this broadcast before communications were cut.

He was on board the Mavi Marmara, the lead ship in the flotilla of six vessels, which was boarded by Israeli commandos who were lowered on to its deck from helicopters.

Another Al Jazeera correspondent, Abbas Nasser, reported in his last call to his TV station's headquarters in Qatar: "Hundreds of Israeli soldiers attacked the flotilla and the captain of our boat is seriously injured."

Al Jazeera later said it had lost contact with all seven of its reporters, in three teams, on board the boats.

Press watchdogs have condemned the arrests of several journalists and the censorship. The International Press Institute reported that two journalists from Australia's Sydney Morning Herald - reporter Paul McGeough and photographer Kate Geraghty – were detained after being "transported" to the Israeli port of Ashdod.

Two Bulgarian journalists working for the BTV television station - reporter Svetoslav Ivanov and cameraman Valentin Vassilev - were also arrested during the assault.

Reporters Without Borders issued a statement saying: "We deplore this assault... The journalists who were on the flotilla to cover the humanitarian operation were put in harm's way by this disproportionate reaction.

"We urge the Israeli authorities to release the detained journalists and allow them unrestricted access to the Gaza Strip."

See also The Guardian's footage moments before the commandos arrived.

Sources: Al Jazeera English/IPI/Reporters without Borders

There are now more Facebook users in the Arab world than newspaper readers, according to research by Dubai-based Spot On Public Relations.

It finds there are more than 15m subscribers to the social networking site while the total number of newspaper copies in Arabic, English and French is just under 14m.

The survey of 17 countries showed that the largest number of Facebook members are in Egypt, with 3.5m users, followed by conservative Saudi Arabia.

The findings should come as no surprise because the majority of the region's more than 300m people is young and internet use is on the rise.

Sources: SpotOn PR/BBC/CyberJournalist

"Journalists have become prisoners of the language of power", said Robert Fisk during a stern lecture delivered at Al Jazeera's annual forum on Sunday.

To illustrate his point, The Independent's Middle East correspondent started off by lampooning the phrase "peace process" to define what he called "the hopeless, inadequate, dishonourable agreement that allowed the US and Israel to dominate whatever slivers of land would be given to an occupied people."

He moved on to the claim that the reporting of the Afghan conflict refers to it as a "hearts and minds" campaign. Yet that was the phrase once applied to winning over the Vietnamese during the Vietnam war. It failed.

He pointed out that journalists have adopted words favoured by the US authorities, such as a "spike" in violence; a "surge" to describe "a mass movement of soldiers brought into Muslim countries by the tens of thousands"; the "road map" to peace under the leadership of Tony Blair, "who, in an obscenity of history, we now refer to as a 'peace envoy'."

He said: "This isn't just about clichés - this is preposterous journalism. There is no battle between power and the media. Through language, we have become them."

There were plenty more examples before he listed what he called "danger words" - such as power players, non-state actors, geostrategic players, narratives, meaningful solutions, Af-Pak and change agents - before revealing that they "all occur in the nine-page Al Jazeera programme for this very forum." He went on:

I'm not condemning Al Jazeera for this... because this vocabulary is not adopted through political connivance. It is an infection that we all suffer from - I've used 'peace process' a few times myself, though with quotation marks which you can't use on television - but yes, it's a contagion.

And when we use these words, we become one with the power and the elites which rule our world without fear of challenge from the media.

But he praised Al Jazeera for having "done more than any television network I know to challenge authority, both in the Middle East and in the West."

If I was standing before my City University students at this moment I'd be asking: "So what do you think of that?"

Source: Al Jazeera English Hat tip: Laura Oliver

An English-language daily newspaper is being launched in Damascus tomorrow and will circulate throughout Syria. Baladna English, the country's first English-language paper, marks the latest stage in the liberalisation of the Syria's media. The publisher, United Group, already publishes the Arabic-language Baladna.

Levels of internet use are set to rocket over next few years in Asia, Middle East and Africa, according to a study conducted by Forrester Research. With a further 2.2bn people expected to be connected to the net, will this affect newspapers? You bet.

The Indian press, for example, is in the midst of a great printing boom, particularly with the launches of local language dailes. But this buoyancy has occurred against the background of the relatively retarded development of internet networks. When broadband spreads through the sub-continent, expect the print boom to come to an end.

Sources: Christian Science Monitor/ World Editors Forum

Martin Newland is giving up the editorship of The National, the daily paper based in Abu Dhabi that he launched in April last year.

He is to take up a new role as editorial director for the paper's publishers, the Mubadala investment company, which is owned by the Abu Dhabi government and its royal family.

His deputy, Hassan Fattah, a former New York Times reporter, is to replace him in the editor's chair.

A source within the paper said: "It was always understood that Martin would move on quite soon after launch. There is nothing sinister in the decision."

Newland is quoted in today's issue of The National as saying: "I've done this for a long time, paid my dues editing, and have always been intrigued by the more business side of things. It's what I'd like to get under my belt and move into before I hit 50." [He is 47]

Mohammed Khalaf Al Mazrouei, the publishers' chairman, said: "We are delighted that Martin will now focus his efforts on the next phase of brand expansion across our digital and broadcast spaces, enabling us to pioneer a new era of regionally relevant, on-demand content to reveal the multiple platform approach of global news brands."

There has been previous speculation that Newland was not as compliant over editorial content as the UAE authorities would have wished. My source counters: "There are plenty of journalists here who think he has been too compliant."

In fact, Newland has been walking a tightrope throughout his editorship because the UAE is unused to the kind of press freedom enjoyed in western countries. Its National Media Council, though masquerading as a progressive supporter of press freedom, is largely viewed as a censorship body.

I wrote in June last year about the way in which Newland's paper was making waves. I also wrote recently about complaints by foreign journalists working in Dubai.

Before The National was launched, Newland recruited a staff of 200 from papers around the world, including the Daily Telegraph, the paper that he edited for almost two years until 2005.

Newland was embarrassed in March this year when the salaries of The National's entire journalistic staff were leaked on to the web. It suggested that he was being paid £320,000 a year, tax-free.

Sources: AP/Forbes/The National/personal emails

It is important for as many voices as possible to be raised against the BBC's wrong-headed decision not to screen the Gaza appeal. The claim that to do so would threaten public confidence in the corporation's impartiality is hopelessly contradictory.

It is surely the case that public confidence in its (supposed) impartiality is now ruined because it will not broadcast the appeal. The decision cannot do other than suggest that the BBC is bending to Israel's will.

Quite simply the appeal is about providing humanitarian aid for a people who have suffered terribly from the conflict. It is about helping to relieve the suffering of injured men, women and children. It's about providing shelter for people without homes. It's about compassion, not politics.