BBC Monitoring Text of report in English by Dubai newspaper Gulf News website on 18 May     An Arab human rights activist has called on Qatari media to start a public debate on press freedom that would push the authorities to amend the existing press law, which he deemed as unconstitutional. …

BBC Monitoring Text of press release by Paris-based organization Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF) on 18 May     The bodies of two Iraqi journalists employed by the US television network ABC, cameraman Al'a al-Din Aziz and soundman Sa'if Layth Yusuf, were found today in Baghdad's Yarmuk hospital. They had been kidnapped by …

WTVG-- May 17, 2007 - Al Jazeera is one of the most popular networks in the globe, but you can only see it in a few American cities, including Toledo. Viewers from around the world can question newsmakers, and so can you, if you subscribe to Buckeye Cable's digital service. …

In this content analysis of U.S. Public Diplomacy radio station Radio Sawa, veteran Middle East broadcasting specialist Sam Hilmy argues that the pop-music driven channel is not meeting its commitment to provide “accurate, timely and relevant news about the Middle East, the world and the United States.”

Without a critical cultural examination of the multiple sides of the “Arabic” and “Arab” media terrain, the fervent attachment to the production of taxonomies to describe this terrain at a time of exponential transformation may provide little more than lines in the sand, claims Editorial Board Member Adel Iskandar.

Al Mehwar’s Heba Kotb is not just any sexologist; she’s the Arab world’s first celebrity tele-sexologist, and a devout Muslim sexologist to boot. So how does the Doctor of Sex reconcile her performance on satellite TV discussing sexual pleasure with her strictly Islamic principles? Anna Swank investigates.

It seems obvious that for an ad to be effective it must represent a prettier, cleaner, better version of reality and yet at the same time feel natural. So why is the hijab such a sensitive topic in Egyptian advertising? Contributing Editor Sharon Otterman investigates, and finds a puzzling mismatch between the hijab in TV ads and the hijab on the street.

Politics have become so divisive in Lebanon that the national media council chief urged the media in January to curb "tense rhetoric" that could instigate violence among the country's religious sects, writes Contributing Editor Paul Cochrane. So what are the media up to? Are they guilty of fanning the flames?

Two years on, Nabil Kassem is still profoundly affected by his experiences in Sudan. What he witnessed there, and recorded in a film he made for Al Arabiya, were scenes of unspeakable brutality and untold suffering, scenes he thought would surely wake up an Arab public all too willing to let Darfur pass by. But 'Jihad on Horseback' never made it across the airwaves. In this highly charged interview with Lawrence Pintak, Kassem speaks of how Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir prevented the broadcast of perhaps the most provocative documentary film ever made by an Arab director.

Recently posted at the British embassy in Dubai, Jon Wilks is no newcomer to the Middle East. Having served across the region over a number of years, the fluent Arabic speaker has been brought in to explain British government policy to the Arab World. Speaking to Arab Media & Society Managing Editor George Weyman, Wilks talks about his role, revealing his mixed views on Arab-channel interviews and how he avoids discussing conspiracy theories.