The hall where a lively debate had taken place for 80 minutes suddenly went silent. A courageous Jordanian journalist had just asked a feisty candidate for Jordan’s parliamentary elections a question rarely asked. “Are you in favor of a constitutional change that will allow prime minister’s to be elected and would curtail the King’s power’s to dissolve the parliament?” asked Hamza Al Soud, Radio al Balad‘s parliamentary reporter.  Continue Reading »

(this was published in June 23rd, 2010)

By Daoud Kuttab

Media and governments have always had a love-hate relationship. While they both need each other, the attempts by one to overwhelm the other (especially when governments try to control media) have often led to unpleasant results.If one agrees that both want what is best for the country, then it is imperative that the executive power and the fourth estate respect the independence of one another. However, if there is lack of trust in the fundamental goal, then the outcome puts into question the country’s long term outlook.

Wanting what is best for the country means that governments are working on plans that take into consideration the needs and aspirations of all sectors of society without favoritism. On the other hand, the media must understand that wanting the best for the country means that they need to avoid knee-jerk positions or partisan editorial policies. Continue Reading »

(This was published in June 16th, 2010)

By Daoud Kuttab

The visitor from Washington, who represented an independent democracy foundation, asked two questions to a group of Jordanian intellectuals: “Where do you see the potential for genuine reform in Jordan and the Arab region? If we were to fund any particular group which would it be?  As expected, initial responses focused on the blame game. The United States is not honest in its push for democracy in the region, an Islamist media activist said. His fact-based argument made some sense. He related how the Americans talk about reform only as long as it doesn’t affect their special relationships with rulers in the region. Continue Reading »

It began with a short press release issued by the US embassy in Amman late last Thursday and has since mushroomed.

The 20 words given about the topic were: “Vice President Biden met with civil society representatives to discuss preparations for the upcoming Jordanian elections and ongoing domestic reforms.” Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab
 
Orphanages are notorious the world over for being a very sensitive place. Losing one or both parents is a shocking and highly emotional condition. Having the same young parentless children living away from the warmth of a natural home produces even more trauma and tends to make such children more vulnerable.
 
It is therefore highly troubling when one discovers adults and even fellow orphans physically and sexually abuse such defenseless children with very few deterrents. This was some of the conclusions that a pair of Jordanian investigative journalists working for months under the supervision of the ARIJ team discovered. The report filling two full pages appeared in the independent daily Al Ghad on December 28, 2009. Reports supervised by Arij are screened and approved by a competent lawyer before being presented for publication.
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Although the Arabic word karameh simply means dignity, it has become an expression that has many more usages and meanings.

Karameh is also a Jordan Valley town in the Shuna District which witnessed a fierce battle against the Israelis. The date was March 21, 1968, and the Israeli army was trying to stem attacks by Palestinian fedayeen coming across the Jordan River into areas occupied by Israel. In its attempts to curtail the guerrilla attacks, the Israelis decided to launch a cross-border attack only to be rejected by brave Palestinian fighters and members of the Jordanian Army. After the battle, King Hussein was quoted as saying “we are all fedayeen”.

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By Daoud Kuttab

Reforming and regulating Jordan’s media appears to be one of the priorities of the administration of Samir Rifai who is considered a friend of many Jordanian journalists, editors and publishers.

As in all efforts that seek greater freedom for the press, two global issues must always be remembered. One is that press people abhor legislation, no matter how reformist it might appear. Global press freedom defenders repeatedly call for less legislation and more self regulation. The other is that governments, no matter what their motivation is, are never very good at producing quality and professional media content. These principles might appear to leave very little for the Rifai’s administration to work with, but the reality is much different.

As a thoughtful article written by a colleague showed, the Jordanian Government can do much to improve the media industry without creating additional laws. Instead, a number of distortions in the existing Press and Publications Law, and the Audio Visual Law need to be removed.
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By Daoud Kuttab

AMMAN – Anthropologists define themselves as scientists who observe the behaviour of people. I doubt that there were any anthropologists at the screenings this Monday and Tuesday at the Royal Film Commission. But the unique documentaries made by Arab filmmakers that hundreds of people saw would certainly qualify as visual anthropology.

These films made by mostly unknown filmmakers gave a rarely seen view of the Arab world and the lives of young Arabs searching for answers to philosophical questions of who they are and what they want.
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In the service of the community

By Daoud Kuttab

Jordan, like many other Arab countries, seems to be having a hard time understanding and dealing with the idea of public service broadcasting.

After decades of government-owned and controlled radio and television stations, under King Abdullah, Jordan began a new era of opening up the airwaves to the private sector. The Audio Visual Law enacted in 2002, which grants licence for radio and television stations to the private sector, succeeded in creating a wide range of commercial stations, but despite the licence to privatise, Jordan has failed to create a legal environment or introduce traditions that encourage and improve public service broadcasting.
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AmmanNet came first on a new survey of newsweb sites

By Taylor Luck

AMMAN – Almost half of Jordanian Internet users rely on news websites, a trend web journalists believe will pave the way for the medium to play a greater role in how the Kingdom gets its news.

According to the 2009 Jordan Media Survey, 16.6 per cent of Jordanians, constituting 45.9 per cent of all web users in the country, said they had visited a news website within the last 30 days.
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