Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and other Arab leaders have warned that by publishing the cartoons, the Western media is playing into the hands of the extremists, “providing further excuses to the forces of radicalism and terrorism.” Unlike many people on the street here, most Arab journalists recognize that the Western media as a whole should not be condemned for the decision by a few newspapers to run the offensive cartoons. But they, too, fear everyone will pay. As al-Ahram’s Salama told me, “We have a saying in Arabic. Children make it and grownups fall in it.”
Lawrence Pintak is director of the Adham Center for Electronic Journalism at the American University in Cairo. His new book, Reflections in a Bloodshot Lens: America, Islam & the War of Ideas, is being published this month.
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This piece is entirely wrong-headed. Many Western media outlets -- including CNN, NBC, CBS and others -- are refusing to show the cartoon depictions of the Prophet Muhammed -- and offering excuses similar to those attributed in the post above to "Arab journalists." (Shouldn't it be Muslim journalists anyway? Not all Arabs are Muslim; not all Muslims are Arabs...)
Anyway, for a longer and I think better take on the controversy, go to my blog www.roryoconnor.org or www.mediachannel.org
Posted by ROC on Fri 3 Feb 2006 at 04:51 PM