Criticism of the Middle East should not be directed only at Saudi Arabia. Human rights abuses are happening throughout the Arab world.
Jamal KhashoggiRead
The Arab world needs a modern version of the old transnational media so citizens can be informed about global events. More important, we need to provide a platform for Arab voices.
Interpretation
The Arab world requires updated media channels to keep citizens informed about global affairs and to amplify Arab perspectives.
In this quote, Jamal Khashoggi emphasizes the critical need for modern media in the Arab region that can inform citizens about international news and events. He argues that beyond just providing news, there is a necessity to create a platform that amplifies Arab voices, ensuring representation and fostering dialogue in a global context.
In practice
In a conference about media freedom, this quote can highlight the importance of accessible information.
Criticism of the Middle East should not be directed only at Saudi Arabia. Human rights abuses are happening throughout the Arab world.
I don't want to be a dissident. But in the same time, I don't want to go back home and be silent again.
I just want to be a free writer. I think I am serving my country and my people by providing an independent narrative.
I have left my home, my family, and my job, and I am raising my voice. To do otherwise would betray those who languish in prison. I can speak when so many cannot.
I would like to see evolution in my country, not revolution. It is much better for us to work together with the government to transform Saudi Arabia for the future.
The Arab world is facing its own version of an Iron Curtain, imposed not by external actors but through domestic forces vying for power.
I can swear on a stack of Bibles that not once in doing the 'CBS Evening News' for 19 years - well, I take it back. Once perhaps. But during 19 years, with perhaps one exception, was I ever aware of any political or commercial pressure on that broadcast whatsoever.
Even the reporting of news has to be understood not as propaganda for any particular ideology, liberal or conservative, but as propaganda for commodities — for the replacement of things by commodities, use values by exchange values, and events by images.
When I stepped down from the evening news at the age of 65, in '81, things were still going well. Immediately after that, the whole tenor of the CBS News Department changed.
Americans born since World War II have grown up in a media-saturated environment. From childhood, we have developed a sort of advertising literacy, which combines appreciation for technique with skepticism about motives. We respond to ads with at least as much rhetorical intelligence as we apply to any other form of persuasion.
I'm 68 and a half years old; I grew up with newspapers; I love newspapers; I love the news business. I started CNN; I'm a journalist and proud of it.
The reality is that the media are probably the most powerful of all our institutions today and they, or rather we [journalists], too often are squandering our power and ignoring our obligations. The consequence of our abdication of responsibility is the ugly spectacle of idiot culture!
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