It is good that Shaden has written about this, because I was going to but totally forgot about it when I was writing my previous post. Just like her, and actually at the same time with her, I have finally met Marc “Abu Aardvark” Lynch in the hotel lobby this morning for a few minutes, just about two hours before my flight to Dammam. It was funny, because I’ve been following his blog for sometime, but when I saw him at the forum, I did not know that he was actually the guy. I knew who he was later on the first day, and it was a coincidence that we were at the same table for dinner, but I was too shy to introduce myself to him, so I didn’t. The next day, after we finished our dinner, we, me and my friends, were entering the hotel with Amira Howeidy, when we saw Marc walking in the lobby. Amira knows Marc, so she went to talk to him. I had another chance to introduce myself, but I was shy again, so I left with my friends. Around midnight, I got back to my room to find a comment by him, saying “you could have introduced yourself!” I sent him an email, but I know that he could not read it because he told us when we, me and Shaden, met him in the morning that he did not have a net connection.

Yesterday, on the last day of the forum, I had breakfast with Ethan Zuckerman and Danny Schechter of Mediachannel.org. It was pretty quick because we had to rush to the first panel of the day, especially Ethan who was speaking at that panel. The panel was about media and power, and the speakers talked about many different things, including how political manipulation can affect the freedom of media.

Faisal al-Qasim, as out spoken as usual, said the media masters in the West had lost the media wars in the Arab World, which is true. But he also did not miss the chance to come up with a new word, because obviously Arab dictionaries lack those ones, saying Arabization (العوربة) has killed globalization.

Amy Goodman, who received a lot of applaud for criticizing the American media, said that in this era of globalization, “nothing is more important than media.” She thinks that American media has reached an all time low, to the extent that MSM started to name war the same name that Pentagon named it. Goodman thinks journalists should experience what does it feel to be at the target end in order to give a fair coverage of the war.

“If a country is in the news and they need help, they get it,” or at least this is what Ethan Zuckerman thinks. Zuckerman said the thing with MSM is that big countries get more coverage, and this situation does not help to solve problems in places like Africa and central Asia. He also emphasized on the role of blogs in changing this, pointing to me (I was sitting in the front row) as an example, and saying that my blog that gives him a good idea about what’s happening in Saudi Arabia.

IMHO, the second panel, titled “Al Jazeera in the Mirror,” was more for Al Jazeera guys than for the audience. I did not enjoy this panel very much, but one thing that caught my attention was Naomi Sakr’s comments regarding the latest pilgrimage tragedy. “Rather than being accountable to the people, the Saudi government blamed Al Jazeera for covering the events,” she said. That simply did not make sense to me. She said that Saudi newspapers, instead of covering the tragedy, had emphasized on the Al Jazeera coverage of the event, which was really bad, and according to some guys from Al Jazeera, was “unprofessional.” Moreover, an insider told me that the person responsible for opening the line for people to call in during that coverage was punished for his decision. I am Saudi, I follow the Saudi newspapers, and I can tell you that they emphasized on the failure of the government bodies to handle the situation, and criticized them on that. Those who criticized Al Jazeera for their coverage were Op-Ed writers and columnists, not news reporters. Probably Al Jazeera guys thinks that I don’t know much about the profession of journalism, but I can say for sure that I know the difference between opinion and news coverage.

The final panel, “Listen! Voice of Youth,” mainly tackled the interaction between media and the young people. Shaden Abdul Rahman leads off with some statistics, and she thinks that Arab World do not take Arab youth seriously enough. She says that media outlets available for the youth are very limited and do not represent them appropriately, and that they need to have more space to address their issues and contribute to solving important issues such as Palestine and Iraq.

Joslyn Massad tried to tell the audience about how she was brainwashed by the powerful American media. She talked about her experience as an Arab American, and about her parents who watch Fox News all the time. However, I think she was hurt when a journalist in the audience blamed her for not speaking in Arabic. “If you say you are proud of your culture, why don’t you speak its language?” she asked. I think it was inappropriate because Joslyn was actually trying, and when she decided to take Arabic classes for the first time in college, almost nobody supported her.

Khaled Al-Niemah, a young Qatari who was not listed in the program, wanted to see media that have values. But he kept on repeating many clichés, which made his argument weaker, and he kept on saying that youth are the future leaders of the nation, to the point that I told Haitham Sabbah, who was sitting next to me, “I don’t want to lead the nation! Just leave me alone!” At the end of the panel, Ahmed Ashour of Al Jazeera announced the project I told you about in my previous post.

After the end of the forum, a group of the participants, including me, have decided to have dinner at a restaurant outside the hotel. We were about eleven, and the majority were Egyptians. At the dinner I had the chance to meet Amira Howeidy, political editor of Al-Ahram Weekly, who told us some of her thoughts regarding the new Al Jazeera International channel. That evening has come to an end awkwardly in a way that I don’t think this blog is the best place to talk about it.

All in all, it was a very good event, and I really enjoyed the experience. And even though not many bloggers were there (I mean those invited because of their blogs and not journalists who blog), blogging was one of the main headlines in the forum and it was almost mentioned in every panel. Blogging has received a very good exposure at this event, and I’m extremely glad about this. I had a really good time, and I’m looking forward to attend next year.

Technorati tags: aljazeera, Al Jazeera Forum, freedom, forum, media, middleeast.

The first day of the 2nd Al Jazeera Forum has come to an end with a nice gala dinner. It was the first time for me to attend such event, so, as I said before, it was all a little bit overwhelming, but I think that I have survived. In general, the first day was active and filled with different kinds of discussions, and a big emphasize on blogging. Let me try to take a look on how this day went.

The first panel on the role of world media in this era was interesting due to the weird diversity of opinions in it. For me, it was an awkward moment when Moneer Shafik said that Western media is not free as we we think. Actually, he tried to give the impression that Western media is not free at all. “Many Western intellectuals complain that their media do not open the door for them,” he added. It could be true that MSM can be selective when they decide what to publish, but I think that in today’s world of web, and weblogs in particular, it is becoming much easier for anyone to speak his mind. If you got something interesting to say, just put it on the web, and people will come; you don’t need MSM. One of the other weird comments by Mr. Shafik was saying that the problem with Arab journalists is that they believe they should work like Westerners, which I thought was funny.

Defining the ethics of journalism was the title of the second panel. At the beginning of the panel, Abdul Wahab Badrakhan asked a really good question. “If the state is unethical with its people, how can we set a code of ethics for the profession?” he asked. Another good point was made by Alain Gresh, who talked about his experience in Saudi Arabia. “When a Western journalist goes to Saudi Arabia, he would be surprised there is a discrimination against women. I don’t accept that, but things are changing,” he said. “A Westerner may not be satisfied with it, but by the Saudi standards that’s pretty good,” he added. While I don’t know about what Mr. Gresh has meant by the Saudi standards, but by my standards, that’s not good enough. Deborah Turness, chief editor of ITV News, whom Mohammed Krichane, the moderator of the panel, described as not just one of the youngest chief editors in the history of the UK, but also as “one of the most beautiful as well,” has emphasized on trust and its role in the media. “If we don’t have trust, we have no news,” she said.

Next on schedule was the panel on blogging, which was I mentioned before, the panel of interest for us bloggers. I can say that this panel was the best one so far; not because I’m a blogger, but it was really good. Dan Gillmor started by saying that journalists are not good with listening to people, which is so true in my point of view. However, I find myself disagree Bertrand Pecquerie, who said that what we are seeing today in citizen’s journalism is a bubble that will burst soon. He also thinks that traditional media are better because they function as watchdogs to governments. There, I really wanted to grab the microphone and tell him this: Yeah, maybe in the West that’s right. But here in the Middle East, where the media is either owned by the governments or censored by it, traditional media cannot play that role. Here comes the bloggers to play that role. And I think that bloggers are in a better position to do so because they are more independent from the influences that affect traditional media. Haitham made some really good points, especially on the Arab blogging movement, while Walid Noueihed was really out of place and he did not seem to have much information about “this whole blogging thing.”

I enjoyed these panels in the company of the gorgeous Palestinian blogger Shaden Abdul Rahman (and no, I’m not just being nice, she is really gorgeous), and also with Ahmed Ashour, who is a graphical designer at Al Jazeera. The next panel was on the challenges facing media organizations in the 21st century, but the three of us have decided that we have had enough, so we left the conference hall. We went to the City Center Mall, had a drink and a delicious chat, and then returned to the hotel. That was the last panel for today, and the only thing left was the gala dinner.

During the gala dinner, I sat with Haitham and two journalists from Al Jazeera on a table that was not entirely empty. Later, Khaled al-Hroub, Marc Lynch, and Alain Gresh joined us at the table. Of course, we, as bloggers, were nobody to them. In the middle of the dinner, I could not help but overhear Khaled al-Hroub talking to someone at the table about the Arab and World Media Forum that was organized by the Arab Thought Foundation in December 2005 in Dubai. The listener asked Mr. Al-Hroub about “this Arab Thought Foundation,” so he told her in a condemning manner that it is something founded by Saudis. “And when you hear the word ‘Saudi’ you can cancel the word ‘Thought’ right away. These two words cannot be put together,” he added. Now, as a Saudi, was I offended by his comment? I won’t answer this, because I have a question that is more important to me: Would Mr. Al-Hroub ever say such thing in public? How about on his TV show?

I thought the dinner would be that last thing for today, but I was wrong. After the dinner, we spent about two hours with some young employees from Al Jazeera, to discuss a new project they are planning for. The new project is supposed to be targeted at young population in the Arab World, and it will use blogging, which is, according to multiple sources, one of the main subjects of interest to Wadah Khanfar, managing director of Al Jazeera. I may get involved in this project, but I’m still thinking about it.

That was about the first day. The second day is not expected to be any less interesting. So just keep an eye on this space. More to come later from the 2nd Al Jazeera Forum.

Technorati tags: freedom, aljazeera, forum, Al Jazeera Forum.

I’ve posted some photos from the panel on blogging. I have taken many notes, but I need sometime to write something readable. Today was a long day, and I’m very tired right now. So, I leave you with the photos, and much blogging to come later.

The blogging panel ended few minutes ago. It was one of the best panels so far, and we witnessed some pretty good discussions. I also had the chance to talk with Dan Gillmor, author of We The Media, one of my favourite books. The next panel on the challenges facing the media organizations in the 21st century. More blogging later,

The discussion is very interesting to me, so I’m afraid I’m gonna miss much of it if I kept on blogging. So I’ll stop now, and write later after this is finished.

I’m live blogging from the 2nd Al Jazeera Forum. The panel on blogging and participatory journalism is about to start now. I will try to keep you updated.