JOURNALISM AGAINST THE GRAIN:
COVERING A DIVIDED MIDDLE EAST

20 June 2015
Washington, D.C.
The Arab Studies Institute, including Jadaliyya and Status Audio Journal, have initiated a media project which aims to bring together the most enterprising journalists and media practitioners whose reporting from the region exemplifies exceptional nuance with media scholars, academics, and activists to build a critical mass with the intention of examining, exposing, and affecting reporting on and in the region. This conference, "Journalism Against the Grain: Covering a Divided Middle East," was the inaugural event which brought together a core group which addressed the preliminary questions and discussed the issues that will shape the future of this project. 

This conference focused on "identifying exemplars, examining shortcomings, and charting the possible paths towards a critical revolutionary journalistic practice." 

This first workshop served as the nucleus of a major initiative which will bring to fruition three significant contributions to debates surrounding the representation of the region. The first is a
comprehensive report about the state of reporting on the greater Middle East. The second is the production of pedagogical tools
that render exemplary reporting from the region an indispensable component of instruction on the Middle East and North Africa. Lastly, and most importantly, we hope to build a long-term network of journalists, media critics, commentators, scholars, editorialists, etc. with the purpose of attempting to reflect on and shift the priorities of coverage towards more succinct, elaborate, insightful, and nuanced discussions of the region.

Highlights

Organizers
Adel Iskander
Malihe Razazan
Bassam Haddad

Papers and Presentations
Sherine Tadros, Sharif Abdel Kouddos, Hannah Allam, Adel Iskander
Back to Basics: Impartiality, Partisanship and Advocacy

Kelly Golnoush Niknejad, Chris Toensing, Dena Takruri
Never the Twain Shall Meet? Regional/Western Media Divides

Safa Al-Ahmad, Anjali Kamat, Shahram Aghamir
All that Leads Bleeds: Covering Revolutions and Conflicts

Kathy Alhayek, Malihe Razazan, Will Youmans
Widening the Lens: Reporting for All
More FAMA Projects​