Soad Saleh, one of the world’s leading female scholars of Islam, fields requests for religious advice each week from callers across the Arab world. Seated at a gilded table on the set of her Egyptian satellite TV show, Women’s Fatwa, Saleh provides religious rulings on a wide range of subjects. How …

A new Islamic television channel Al Resalah (The Message) launched in March 2006 amid a buzz of speculation about whether the station, billed as the first-ever moderate Islamic entertainment channel, would be able to offer a sufficiently appealing product (Islam-friendly comedies, talk shows, reality TV, music videos and game shows) to attract …

Within the larger debate over the American-led war in Iraq, the question of the media and its coverage of the war has often been as contentious as the war itself. Major Amy Connelly is the commander of the US Army’s 204th Public Affairs Detachment. From January 2004 until February 2005, Major Connelly …

For anyone who has followed the Iraq War on television, Brigadier General Mark T. Kimmitt has to be one of the most recognizable spokespersons for the American military. General Kimmitt, who served in the high-profile position as chief military spokesman for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad, is now the deputy director …

The war in Iraq has taken a grisly toll on journalists. Reporters Without Borders has called it the deadliest conflict for journalists since World War II. For Pan-Arab news network Al Arabiya, the violence has hit home, killing at least 11 of its staff in Iraq and severely limiting the …

A number of war-themed reality shows have become enormous hits in Iraq since the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime and the subsequent proliferation of satellite channels throughout the country. State-run Al Iraqiya has a hit on its hands with the controversial Terror in the Hands of Justicein which captive insurgents confess …

The media landscape in Iraq has undergone a radical transformation since state-run Iraqi television abruptly went off air following the US-led invasion in March 2003. With no state television and the ownership of satellite dishes banned by the Baathist regime, Iraqis were, quite literally, starved for information. As a result, …

BREAKING NEWS : Jihadi TV Al Zawraa in Europe? TBS Publisher Lawrence Pintak: Insurgent TV Coming to a Satellite Near You? "A controversial TV channel that is the voice of Iraq's anti-American insurgents looks set to open another front in the propaganda war against the U.S. The head of Al-Zawraa, which airs footage …

A quick glance at the top 40 most requested songs on the Web site for the popular Arabic music video channel Melody Hits TV reveals the latest and greatest from stars such as Lebanon’s Nancy Ajram—infamous for her sexually suggestive videos—as well as others like America’s rapper Eminem and Egypt’s crooner Tamer …

Sitting, as I do, in that strange no-man’s-land between journalism and academia, I am frequently struck by the gap separating theory and reality. That’s true when it comes to Middle East politics—it was, after all, neat theories of democratization disconnected from regional realities that led to Iraq's current woes—and it’s …