News

The New York Times Company (NYTCO) announced Tuesday updated full-year 2005 guidance and its outlook for 2006. Later this month, the company plans to provide earnings guidance on the fourth quarter of 2005. NYTCO also announced Tuesday that in November 2005 advertising revenues for the company's business units increased 5.8 per cent and total company revenues increased 3.1 per cent compared to...

MIRANSHAH, Dec 6: Authorities in North Waziristan have not been able to trace the whereabouts of a local journalist who was kidnapped on Monday. Speaking to a delegation from the Tribal Union of Journalists on Tuesday, North Waziristan’s political agent Zaheerul Islam said that although investigators had not yet reached any conclusions it was possible that "Taliban elements" had a hand in the...

Al Jazeera's new English-language service is not about to take the United States by storm, but it could have a major effect on Muslim communities around the globe. Its greatest impact, however, may be on Al Jazeera's Arabic broadcasts. As veterans of the American media environment know, US audiences are growing increasingly segmented. Hundreds of cable and satellite television channels compete for...

Between November 2003 and May 2004, while I was writing my book about Al Jazeera, I spent time interviewing a multitude of miscellaneous individuals and organizations about their feelings towards the network. I heard a diverse range of opinions about the channel, stretching from the overwhelmingly positive to the vehemently negative. I soon saw patterns emerging. I could see at once, for example...

DOHA -- There is no getting away from it. Al Jazeera continues to dominate the discourse, despite significantly improved competition (reflected in growing market share) from Al Arabiya and a step back over the past year from its past tendency to overly emotionalize, Fox TV-style, when framing the news. Nowhere was that more apparent than at the Fifth Doha Forum on Democracy and Free Trade at the...

Militarily, there was never any doubt that the US-led Coalition would prevail over Saddam's forces in March and April 2003. However, there was much more at stake than a mere demonstration of military might. The Coalition had told the world that it was "liberating" the Iraqi people; this had to be publicly proven. When Victoria Clarke, US assistant secretary of state for public affairs, issued her...

t seemed a mere coincidence that only two days after the airing of the CBS 60 Minutes on Abu Gharaib prison torture April 26, 2004, Margaret Tutweiler, the US undersecretary for Public Diplomacy, resigned to take a position in the New York Stock Exchange. Ms. Tutweiler's resignation was as low-key as that of her predecessor in the job, Charlotte Beers, who resigned in March of 2003 for "health...

Debate and discussion are at the cornerstone of any democracy. There have been many changes throughout the Middle East in the past year with the elections in Iraq, Palestine, and Saudi Arabia, as well as the demonstrations in Lebanon and the Mubarak Initiative. As the political landscape of the Middle East changes, so must the media that covers it. The media should report on these stories...

When Americans became aware that the prestige of the United States after 9/11 had declined seriously in the Arab world, many called for an intensified public diplomacy effort in the Middle East in order to reverse that decline. Reacting to that concern, the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which is responsible for US Government-sponsored international broadcasting, developed two new projects...

The nondescript redbrick building housing Alhurra's state-of-the-art television studios lies tucked between offices for Lockheed Martin and Boeing just outside Washington, DC. Although it boasts an arsenal far different from that of its neighbors, the location of the US-funded Arabic satellite channel, at the heart of the military industrial complex, is striking. After all, the $62 million effort...