Strutting onto the stage at this week's Arab Media Forum (AMF) to a burst of applause and cheers, Egyptian satirist Bassem Youssef had a captive audience eating out of his hand.

"We elected him as an employee," Youssef said directing his deadpan barb at Egyptian...

I met her once, but I already knew her.

Roula Ayoubi was that distinctive voice I heard countless times on the BBC's Arabic Service newscasts reporting from Afghanistan, Iraq, and the U.S., during my daily commutes to work.

She struck me as a very professional journalist who kept...

Try getting on TV if you're telegenic with an instinct for news. Try again if you lost an eye as a poverty-stricken child from Yemen where even your relatives made fun of you.

"In 2004, a relative took me to the mosque, told me 'you'll stand here, beg, you have...

The real question is: with bigger smartphones and smaller tablets, what's to become of content and how do you reinvent it?

That and countless other queries continue to baffle magazine publishers trying to re-purpose their text, photos, infographics, videos, audio, augmented reality, and other gimmicks to hang on to their...

This is a summary of a chapter by the author in "Media and Information Literacy and Intercultural Dialogue" edited by Ulla Carlsson and Sherri Hope Culver and published by the International Clearinghouse on Children, Youth and Media at NORDICOM, University of Gothenburg, Sweden. The publication is available as a PDF...

"Yes, Power Corrupts, But Power Also Reveals."

A very timely headline to an article I read on LinkedIn two days before conducting a workshop for Lebanese journalists on the very topic of corruption.

In the piece, Wharton professor and author Adam Grant focused on Frank Lloyd Wright...

Social networks can and should contribute to knowledge-based societies in the Arab world but their users and the direction they take need closer inspection, conferees in Dubai were told.

According to Sultan Ali Lootah, CEO of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation (MBRF), social networks should be used to...

One can't keep track of multiple events on the dizzying Egyptian media landscape.

But Bassem Youssef and his run-ins with authorities over charges of insulting President Mohamed Morsi and defaming Islam take top billing.

He is also accused of "spreading false news with the aim of disrupting...

This is a summary of a commentary that appeared in the third issue of Middle East Media Educator.

I'm disheartened, but not surprised, by comments from media executives who believe journalism schools and media programs in Lebanon are turning out functional illiterates.

It's a familiar refrain.

Newspapers are on the wane and print is heading for extinction.

Newspapers have found a new life and print is becoming creative.

To believe various reports about print media, notably newspapers that have seen a marked transformation in recent years and dip in circulation figures, one can't blame readers for...

Arab youth are more concerned about fair pay, home ownership, and a decent life than democracy, according to a survey that analyzed data from 12 countries.

The rising cost of living was a major concern although the lack of democracy and civil unrest were also seen as obstacles to progress,...

How much media accountability is there in Lebanon? Are media accountable and do they hold officials accountable?

It's a double-edged sword that cuts both ways because political figures or their relatives own various media.

Lebanese media are, in essence, accountable but the country's laws and codes of ethics are not...

The place for digital developers is in the newsroom goes the tune on the latest advances in the newspaper world since industry movers and shakers must cater to consumers' multiple senses across various platforms.

"The development of these expanded platforms and associated interactive strategies means that our newsrooms need more...

An online clarion call last week halted -- if briefly -- a Lebanese Internal Security Force (ISF) request to poke into mobile phone data sessions, SMS traffic, citizens' browsing logfiles, IP addresses and passwords, chats, emails and apps used in a bid to decipher unsolved crimes.

Ironically, it coincided with...

No entity could be walking a tightrope more than news media in the Middle East following a spate of uprisings, revolutions, regime changes and civil wars over the last two years.

Which makes analyzing trends and trying to project where news organizations are heading quite difficult, given fast evolving technologies...

Numbers can be confusing and fascinating, particularly when there's a plethora representing the digital media scene and its breakdown into diverse components worldwide.

But they're quite relevant when they provide detailed information on which to base plans and expenditures, as laid out in the FIPP World Digital Media Factbook 2012-13.

It's not your average art gallery, its location isn't exactly associated with avant-garde works, and the person running it is from another country.

Mention Kuwait and you elicit talk of oil wealth, desert sands, and Iraq's invasion of the emirate in 1990.

Interestingly, it's been a center for art...

Alexander McNabb outdid himself in his second novel, Beirut, An Explosive Thriller, another adventure-filled story loaded with intrigue, espionage, love, murder, international hoods and plenty of violence.

The book traces in meticulous (and sometimes gruesome) detail the adventures of a British intelligence operative in the Lebanese capital, and...

It hasn't been a good past month for Egyptian Information Minister Salah Abdel Maqsoud who's still being ridiculed for what Arab TV viewers consider an on-the-air pass at an attractive but serious talk show host.

A 19-second video clip on YouTube of Dubai TV's Syrian interviewer Zeina Yazigi,...

World Magazine Trends 11-12 saw weak prospects for recovery of the magazine industry in the Middle East and Africa in the coming years, and the United States is projected to lose ground in adspend, as it was the hardest hit by the recent worldwide economic downturn.

The Asia Pacific region...