25 Sunday Nov 2012
Posted in Arab World, Foreign Policy, Media Monitoring, Other Arab issues, Press, USA, World
The photo of the Palestinian BBC journalist Jihad Masharawi holding his 11-month-old son’s body has gained big exposure at the start of the Israeli war on Gaza ten days ago. It featured on the front page of the Washington Post among other press and media outlets on 14th and 15th November 2012.
But some Jewish and American groups, of course, saw it differently when they protested by writing to the ombudsman and to Post editors that the photo was “biased”.
07 Wednesday Nov 2012
Posted in LB Politics, LB Social, Lebanon, Media Monitoring, Press, Social Media
Lebanese twitterverse and blogosphere have rightly highlighted yesterday what it seemed an act of censorship by the traditionally pro-Hariri NOW Lebanon website. The unfortunate incident resulted with an anti-Hariri English editorial been taken down shortly after publication.
But to loudly shout ‘censorship’ and just stop, doesn’t give describe the full picture, and give much justice to the website that is trying to change. It is, actually, changing towards more balanced and professional reporting.
25 Thursday Oct 2012
Posted in LB Culture, Lebanon, MB Culture, Media Monitoring, MicroBlogs, Press, Social Media
Tags
annahar, arab spring, Citation, Lebanese Blogging, Lebanese Blogosphere, Lebanese people, lebanon
Today Lebanon Spring blog has been featured in the Lebanese daily Annahar. You can check Reine Abu Moussa’s post on this blog here. So thanks to her.
Also, I have an article in Arabic that was published with a title “Muddling The Arab Spring”. I plan to publish an English translation of it, but you can check the current Annahar version here.
20 Saturday Oct 2012
Posted in Arab World, LB Politics, Lebanon, Media Monitoring, Other Arab issues, Press
Tags
Assassination, Bashar Al-Assad, Information Branch, Internal Security Forces, Lebanese Assassinations, lebanon, March 14, syria, Terrorism, Wissam Al-Hassan, Wissam AlHassan, Wissam-El-Hassan
Here we go again. Another Lebanese national figure and innocent people are wasted. Together with reportedly eight others, the head of the Information Branch in the Internal Security Forces (police) in Lebanon Wissam Al-Hassan have been assassinated yesterday in a street bomb in Achrafieh in Beirut.
Early on, I warned and speculated that Saad Hariri could pay a high price for his leading involvement in Syria, and it may now be the payback time. And I feel we are just at the start of something bigger.
Sadly we got used to this terrorist method of political elimination since 2004. This is the 26th political explosion since then, with most ending as assassinations. Ten of these 26 explosions targeted anti-Syrian regime figures, two targeted Information Branch figures (anti-Syrian regime), other ten targeted areas largely known to be Christian, three targeted the Lebanese Army including a military chief, and one explosion targeted a non-leading but senior official in a pro-Syrian party.
18 Monday Jun 2012
Posted in LB Politics, MB Culture, Media Monitoring, MicroBlogs, Press, The rest of the world, World
Tags
Hate Culture, Humanity, Israel, Middle East, Photo, Press, Propaganda, Terrorism, West Bank, Yedioth Ahronoth
I am convinced the violence that historically plagued the Middle East is rooted in the culture of hate that is widely spread and established in the region. We see it in form of sectarianism, religious or ultra-nationalist forms, but we – rightly – beat ourselves for having this disease, while Israel claims to be a democracy and peace-loving country.
Israel continuously fear-mongers about the ‘savage Arabs’ that live around them who want to throw them in the sea, and use children in their militant activities – which is no doubt the worse type of all.
A main differentiation of existence of the hate culture in Israel is its promotion on the ‘state’ level, and not on the level of some rogue elements or parties in the society. Israel is as worse as, if not way ahead of, its neighbourhood in this respect. Israel is the place where militancy and war-readiness is seeded in their children minds.
14 Thursday Jun 2012
Posted in Arab Spring, Arab World, LB Politics, Media Monitoring, Politics, Press, Syria
You might not take me seriously if I told you that the below cuttings are taken from an Al-Akhbar article (here is the Arabic version), written by its editor-in-chief Ibrahim Al-Amine.
Al-Akhbar has close links with Hezbollah, with Al-Amine considered the unofficial spokesman of the Party of God. I am not talking about the portrait of Imad Mughniyeh behind his desk, but rather his editorials.
He is a staunch supporter of Bashar Assad’s regime, but he goes out of his way sometimes, mostly in the wrong way, but I can’t fault him this time. This is what he gave us this time:
30 Wednesday May 2012
Posted in LB Politics, MB Politics, Media Monitoring, MicroBlogs, Politics, Press
Ana Maria Luca from NOW Lebanon wrote an interesting article ‘The Sunni Streets’, following up on the clashes that took place last week in Tarik Al-Jadideh in Beirut. She interviewed me about the events and quoted me in her piece.
24 Thursday May 2012
Posted in LB Politics, LB Social, Lebanon, Media Monitoring, Press
While reading Al-Akhbar English website, I was faced with Israeli adverts near the target article. It was a bit of shock for me, but fun at the same time.
28 Wednesday Mar 2012
Posted in LB Politics, LB Social, Lebanon, Media Monitoring, Press
Tags
Blogging, Blogosphere, Censorship, Lebanese Blogosphere, Lebanese Internet Regulation Act, lebanon, LIRA, Press, Stop LIRA
There is no doubt the Lebanese blogosphere is united against the law-proposal of the Minister of Information Walid Daouk to regulate online websites in what has became known as LIRA (the Lebanese Internet Regulation Act).
07 Wednesday Mar 2012
Posted in LB Politics, Lebanon, Media Monitoring, Politics, Press, Syria
Tags
Al-Binaa, Baba Amr, Homs, lebanon, Propaganda, SANA, syria, Syrian Arab News Agency, Syrian Social Nationalist Party
Speaking of Syrian propaganda (or here, here and here), one can’t ignore the Lebanese propaganda that supports the Syrian one, which tends to be worse in employing zero logic while repeating the official Syrian line without any questioning.
01 Thursday Mar 2012
Posted in Arab Spring, Arab World, Media Monitoring, Politics, Press, Syria
Tags
Every time I discuss the Syrian tragedy with an anti-revolution or pro-Assad person, I would be faced with these questions: how do you know the numbers of killed people are right? Can you verify them? Why not count the killed soldiers too? Obviously, these people try to muddle the core problem and cover (unintentionally sometimes) for the Syrian regime atrocities. This is exactly what blogger Sharmine Narwani did in a long article in Al-Akhbar English. From a previous conversation with her on twitter, Sharmine might not be a pro-Assad person, but she is doing her best to doubt the genuine outcome and intentions of the peaceful uprising (yes peaceful, that’s how it started, ok).
In her mentioned piece, she asks:
Perception is 100 percent of politics […] How then does one count 20, 40, or 200 casualties in a few hours while conflict continues to rage around them?
05 Sunday Feb 2012
Posted in Caricature of the day, Media Monitoring, Press, The rest of the world, World
Tags
Ayatollah Khomeini, Iran, Iranian Revolution, Islam, Photo, Press, Propaganda, Supreme Leader of Iran, The Atlantic
It’s surely one of the most bizarre ways to commemorate an event. Iran has marked the 33rd anniversary of Ayatollah Khomeini’s return to Iran from his exile before the Islamic revolution took over power in 1979, by re-enacting his journey with a replica of him, made of an oversized cardboard cut-out.
29 Thursday Dec 2011
Posted in Media Monitoring, Press, Syria, The rest of the world, World
Tags
It was a majestic funeral indeed for the North Korean Leader Kim Jong-il yesterday. You can see from the above photo how tidy the scene is. Mourners standing in lines, snowy white background and parades passing by in order. I just wondered if the people were crying because of their leader’s death or they we were just feeling cold.
But with North Korea being one of the highest militarised country in the world (9.3 million or 38% of the total population are military personnel including the reserves), and for a country that responded with a ‘military-first’ policy to a national famine that killed around 1.5 million of its people, you can’t really trust anything that comes out from this country, not even a funeral photo!
26 Monday Sep 2011
Posted in LB Politics, Lebanon, Media Monitoring, Politics, Press, Wikileaks
Tags
Almustaqbal, Hezbollah, lebanon, March 14, Michel Aoun, Press, Saad Hariri, twitter, Wikileaks
The Lebanese daily newspaper Almustaqbal reported today that the head of Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) General Michel Aoun referred to Hezbollah as a ‘terrorist organisation’ in one of the Wikileaks cables (06Beirut413). Other media outlets reported the story referring to Almustaqbal, and one of them was Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation International (LBCI) where I read this piece news (on their website).
Almustaqbal newspaper is owned by the political opponent and Former Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri. If this is true, it will be a blow to the current alliance that exists between Michel Aoun and Hezbollah.
Actually, I read this cable before Almustaqbal, and soon after its release. I decided then NOT to blog about it, as I didn’t find anything unusual or already not available in the public domain.
There is a huge amount of spin added to the reporting on Wikileaks cables. Some journalists are taking some cables out of context to serve their political inclinations and objectives. This blog aims to uncover as many cables as possible, irrespective of the political party being damaged from the leaked cable. And consequently, Lebanon Spring will ‘name and shame’ any media outlet adding their own spin to the story.
Continue reading »
27 Monday Jun 2011
Posted in Media Monitoring, Politics, Press, Syria
Western journalists were given access to Syria 3 days ago, which was the first time since the start of its uprising 100 days ago. I counted three organisations: CNN, Sky News, and The Sunday Times. The latter did not wish to name its reporter, but I noticed the others from their TV and Twitter reporting; they were Jeremy Thompson from Sky, Hala Gorani, Arwa Damon and Jomana Karadsheh – all from CNN (unless I missed others).
27 Friday May 2011
Posted in MB Politics, Media Monitoring, MicroBlogs, Politics, Press
Tags
This post is really just for fun, and not really scientific!
I was checking four main Lebanese ‘quality’ newspapers (broadsheets) on 25th May, a national holiday in Lebanon, when I noticed a funny coincidence about this day in these papers.
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