Media figures highlight role of official Arab media

AMMAN, Oct 3 (KUNA) -- Director of the media dialogue program at the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), Ibrahim Hilal said Monday that the official Arab media brought out distinctive qualified figures who contributed to boosting the private media sector.

In statements to KUNA, the Hilal stressed saying that what is required is not ending the role of the official media but to interact with its issues and solve the problems being faced through transforming it into a public media instead of a government one.

He indicated that it is for the welfare of the Arab governments to be more independent for the media to also become more independent.

For his part, President of Internews Network, David Hoffman stressed the importance of granting freedom and independence to the media..

Jordanian journalist Faisal Malkawi said that the official Arab media has failed to reflect its internal message and to cope with foreign events.

He indicated that this failure is due to the control of the governments while the world is open and going through a communications revolution that transformed the media into an industry controlled by competition.

He added that the governments have the right to own a media mean that defends and promotes them but they should not intervene in the other local media means.

Mohammed Al-Qahtani from Saudi Arabia said that the official Arab media is witnessing openness and intercommunicating with the public which reflects its ability to overcome the obstacles and highlight national issues.

He called for transforming the official media into semi-official to promote the principals, ethics and the Arab heritage.

The World media three-day forum on media development kicked off here on Saturday with 600 media figures from over 100 Arab and foreign states attending to discuss how to upgrade the media for realizing global development.

The forum, organized by the Washington-based Internews Network in cooperation with the Jordanian media center, aims at promoting the cooperation relations between the media sector and decision makers and to promote the media and its role in the economic, political, social and cultural development process, as well as restructuring the media within framework of common global criteria.

The discussions will also focus on economic development and its relation with media development, aftermath of crisis, relation of civil society with non-profit media institutions, environment and health press and their role in staving off poverty, as well as collaboration between organizations and the donors to push up media standards.

The forum also targets boosting ties between the media sector and the decision makers, impact of the media on popular participation and playing down poverty as well as finding solutions for the economic and social problems.