"The answer of Joudeh opened the way for newspapers to publish the news about then report"

Someone misunderstands the role of the press here. It is to act as a "morakeb" on the performance of the government, to report on the issues related to the country. It is not a government "booq", or beacon to hide the issues relating to the country, or to promote the government's official line.

The relationship between the media and the government is turned up-side-down in our country, and someone doesn't understand the media's role well.

"and someone doesn't understand the media's role well."

Actually, someone understands the role of the media all too well. In Jordan the media has been subverted, corrupted, bought, sold, auctioned,... There is no independent media in Jordan. Thank God for the blogs.

in the AI report, note the part about the torture of islamists and jordanians of palestinian origin. KULLUNA AL URDUN is worth about 2 fils.

On July, 27, 2006 3:27 AM , hamede
from United States said:

In oct 25 2005,abc episode of commander in chief,fbi send a man to jordan for aggressive type of interrogation torture,how many jordanian been torture i no about 30 of them.

To be honest, whenever I am in Jordan, I asked my parents why they buy Al-Rai (the most respected newspaper), they say "for the adverts and offers".

Now, when I ask my friends why their parents subscribed to Al-Ghad (the Hariri-style Future Newspaper), they say "they gave year subscriptions for free".

Now, a friend also told me that the daily newspaper circulation in Jordan is 70,000 copies a day. If you consider:

-the average household is made up of 7 members
-Jorda has a 5 million population
-then Jordan has 700,000 houses
-it means 1 out of 10 houses buys a daily newspaper.

The lack of credible media backfires at the governments. But our government still cant see that and it is still using methods of control from the 70s.

Batir, since you are a journalist, I'd really like to hear your opinion on the newspapers. I ever had the chance of speaking to a columnist in a Jordanian newspaper.

What I want to know is that, are there unwritten rules? Written ones? Self-censorship? Or selective employment of columnists who toe the official line voluntarily? What does the editor tell you when you go beyond the editorial policy (which is set by the mokhabarat)?

I mean, how does the editor, for example, have the face to tell you "kill it", then go on to write an op-ed about "Jordan First" with all its democratic promises?

On July, 27, 2006 11:13 AM , The Observer
from Jordan said:

Yes batir, I would like to know the answer of Rami's questions as well. How much freedom do we have in our newspapers? and is it really as you said English newspapers have more freedom than Arabic ones???

This report is a serious matter. I hope journalist won't let it slip easily for the government. They ought to write and write on it to make sure the government would handle it properly.

On July, 27, 2006 12:28 PM , Batir
from Jordan said:

Rami, maybe you have missed my sarcasm in the sentence about "opened the way". Yes I understand the ideal role of the media as "fourth authority" but in Jordan it does not act this way. The Arabic newspapers mentione the AI report in the context of Joudeh's answers but not as an independent news item. This is the irony.
Journalists in Jordan face 4 sources of pressures from outside and are subjected to two sources of "moral" drivers from inside.
The four outside influences are the government/ security nexus, the public opinion (how hard it is to criticise Nasrallah now?), private sector pressure on the newspaper (advertisements) and of course the policy of the newspaper itself. As for internal pressures it depends on the journalist himslef. There are many "incentives" that some journalists face with their work. They can get money, presents and positions if they write nice things and romote some agendas. Others focus more on "pressures" taht they might face in their daily lives, even family matters while writing and try to maneuver their ways.
The English press is more free. The Jordan Times and Star are always on top in freedom, except for the time when a certain current chief editor of a daily Arabic magazine (previously UN speaker in Iraq) was the editor of Jordan Times. At that time Jordan Times was an english translation of Al rai.
I did not speak about myself not to make it personal but I can write more in the Arabic blog later about this important issue.

On July, 27, 2006 1:08 PM , The Observer
from Jordan said:

Batir, Thanks for the explanation.

Yes, I think you should write more about this in your blog, whether Arabic or English. It is a serious matter. We ought to push for more freedom in our media.