Arab Media Forum panelists, participants and speakers have pointed to the need for a serious shakeup within Arab media to promote its development and keep up with regional and international events.
Dubai Ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, in his forum’s address, said that the media possesses the power of the word and utilizes this power to make a positive impact on the community.
“Good words will grow and prosper. The media must maintain high levels of integrity and professionalism,” Sheikh Mohammed said.
The Forum has brought regional media outlets together for discussing obstacles and issues the industry is facing, notably the rise of fake news, and countering terrorism and hate speech..
Dubai’s ruler also called on Arab media institutions to focus on the makeup of their human staffers away from basic qualifiers in advanced technology.
Kicking off with the whopping participation of three thousand Arab media figures, the Forum held several sessions revolving around the theme of trust in the media, such as “Countering Incitement,” “The Value of Trust in Today’s News Environment,” and “The Struggle Against Hate Speech.”
The opening session, which was dedicated to Arab Ministers of Information, discussed development and reform needed to promote Arab content through the various communications platforms.
Attending the session, the Bahraini Information Minister Ali bin Mohammed Al Rumaihi noted that regression spotted in regional media performance is mainly attributed to government officials shying away from interacting with media and a lack of clear strategies for efficiently dealing with social media.
Rumaihi also said that such shortcomings greatly inhibit government officials’ ability to deliver their messages to the largest possible segment of society.
Also speaking at one of the Forum’s sessions, Abdulrahman Al-Rashed, head of the editorial board at Al Arabiya, said that media should be unbiased and give a chance for all to voice their opinions and concerns.
For the Saudi Ambassador to the UAE, Turki Aldakhil, politics acts a primary diverse domain from which various branches, including diplomacy, emerge. Drawing on the similarities between a diplomat and a media figure, he noted that the coming together of media and politics makes them the two sides of a single coin.
Aldakhil, however, noted that unlike the diplomat a journalist is not tied down by professional reservations on voicing their personal opinions and analysis anywhere, especially on social media.
Nonetheless, he pointed to the important role social media platforms are playing in the world of diplomacy, transforming the perception of diplomatic affairs as purely focused on performing mundane processes such as issuing visas and the preparation of annual reports.
