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21 Jun 2016
Slimane Zeghidour, media expert and chief editor at the French channel TV5 News, met with MA students of journalism and new media at the Jordan Media Institute (JMI). They had a discussion on media professionalism, politics, and relations between the West and the Arab and Muslim worlds.<br />
Zeghidour, who is a researcher at the Paris Institute of Political Studies, underlined the need for returning to basics and fundamentals in protecting media professionalism. He criticized the Arab media due to their weak ability to maintain credibility and the confidence of the Arab public. Besides, many Arab journalists lack general education. He noted that there is political control, but community control is larger. This control requires greater professionalism so that journalists can mitigate its impact. He highlighted the role of the media in building bridges between elite groups in power and the public.<br />
The participants discussed Western media coverage of Arab and Middle Eastern issues and affairs, the reasons for the decline in coverage of the Palestine question in the Western media, and the chaos in the use of concepts and terms in the media.