Writing The Wrongs: The Most Powerful Names in Arab Media

Monday, April 15, 2013

The Most Powerful Names in Arab Media

Ronn Torossian

Quite interesting to read the annual ArabianBusiness.com list of the 500 most powerful Arabs in the world – and it is truly amazing how many on the list have an impact on the media world and public perception. There are believed to be over 300 million Arabs worldwide – and their influence naturally spreads quite far.
While Arab wealth is well-renowned due to oil and many other resources, media isn’t an area which has traditionally received much attention as a sphere of Arab influence. Reviewing the Arabian business list, while social media has been credited with helping to spark the Arab spring, influential Arabs have a major impact on traditional media – and it’s going to grow and not go away.
Some choice powerful Arabs from the list:

• Prince Alwaleed of Saudi Arabia ranked #1 on the list for the 9^th year in the row – and the billionaire is the second-largest voting shareholder in News Corp. and a major owner of Twitter. (And the biggest growth market in the world for Twitter is Saudi Arabia.) Prince Alwaleedalso owns the Rotana Group, the largest entertainment company in the Arab world, 90% of the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation International (the 1^st private television station in Lebanon) and much more.
• The 5^th most powerful Arab in the world is Twitter’s head of operations, a Jordanian named Mazen Rawashdeh. Digital media is clearly rapidly growing and not vanishing – and with a Saudi owner and Jordanian running the company, clearly Arab influence matters at Twitter and in the digital arena.
• Emad Burnat (#15) is a Palestinian Arab whose film Five Broken Cameras was nominated this year for the Best Documentary Feature at the Academy Awards, and won multiple awards at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. The movie has done wonders for the Palestinian issue and caused tremendous damage to Israel as a strong piece of propaganda.
• Rounding out the top 25 is Elie Khouri (#23), CEO of MENA Omnicom, one of the world’s largest advertising and marketing conglomerates. Khouri is involved with launching IKEA in Egypt, and many other brands, and is involved with a Dubai art non-profit and UAE entrepreneur programs. Also in the top 25 is Joseph Ghossoub, chairman and chief executive officer of MENA Communications Group (MENACOM), parent company of legendary worldwide advertising agency Young & Rubicam. Ghossoub is a director of Dubai Media Incorporated and has been described by Bloomberg News as “One of the Middle East communications industry’s most prominent spokespersons.”
• Owning a major PR firm, I assumed I was aware of many of the most influential people on social media – but admittedly had never before heard of the man named as the 35^th most influential Arab in the world, Sultan Sooud Al-Qassemi, who is a major commentator on the Arab world. His twitter feed (SultanAlQassemi) was named by Time Magazine as one of the “140 Best Twitter Feeds of 2011,” and his reach is indeed quite far.
• Pierre Choueiri (#42) and Mohammed Al Mulla (#45) respectively own major media empires. They reach many millions worldwide – and have the power to influence policy, opinion and actions worldwide.
The editor of Arabian Business said: “Once again we have produced what we believe to be the most comprehensive guide ever to Arab influence. This list is a celebration of the great work and contribution of Arabs all over the globe.” Others in the top 500 world of interest to those in the world of media and communications include Daoud Kuttab, Hala Gorani (CNN anchor), Mona Al Marri of the Dubai Government Media Office, who has been described as a Public Relations guru, and Egypt’s Bassem Youssef, who recently attracted worldwide media attention when he was arrested.
As the description noted, the “magazine defines power as influence.” Clearly, the Arab world understands the power and importance of communications and media – and it’s something to be aware of and knowledgeable about.

Article printed from FrontPage Magazine: http://frontpagemag.com
URL to article: http://frontpagemag.com/2013/ronn-torossian/the-most-powerful-names-in-arab-media/

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U.S. scholars' group votes in favor of academic boycott of Israel

US-Israeli talks focus on Ahmadinejad's possible ouster

Why reconstruct Gaza without making demands

Ted Belman

The US and EU are putting up $2.3 Billion to redevelop Gaza.

Before advancing any money, why don’t they insist

- that Shalit be release without convicted terrorists being released by Israel in exchange,

- that the US be put in charge of the southern border to ensure that Hamas isn’t rearmed?

- that their three preconditions be accepted by Hamas, i.e. agree to all former agreements,recognize Israel and renounce terror

- that Hamas amend their Charter

- That Hamas disconnect from Iran

The answer is that they don’t want to.

IDF: Civilian Deaths in Gaza Less than 25% of Total

A maximum of 25% of the Palestinians killed in Gaza since the beginning of the Israeli operation are innocent civilians, the head of the IDF's Gaza Coordination and Liaison Administration (CLA), Col. Moshe Levi, said Wednesday. According to Palestinian medical officials, Israel has killed some 1,000 Palestinians and more than half of them are civilians. Levi said the CLA had compiled a list with the names of 900 Palestinians killed during the fighting. He said that 150 names were of women, children and elderly, and that the maximum number of civilians killed so far was 250.
Levi also dismissed claims that 43 Palestinians were killed in an IDF attack on a Hamas terror cell that was firing mortars at Israeli forces from within an UNRWA school in Jabalya. Levi said 21 Palestinians were killed in the attack, including a number of Hamas operatives. (Jerusalem Post)

Iranian reformist daily:Hamas hiding forces in nurseries and hospitals

An Iranian reformist daily newspaper has criticized Hamas "for risking lives of civilians, amongst them children, by hiding its forces in nurseries and hospitals." This is reported in today's Palestinian daily Al-Ayyam. The Palestinian daily adds that in response the Iranian government has closed the newspaper.

The following is the story in today's Al-Ayyam:

Headline: "Iran closes a reformist newspaper, for publishing a report criticizing Hamas"

"The Iranian news agency "Irna" reported yesterday, that the Iranian Culture Ministry has closed the reformist daily newspaper "Karjo Zaran", because it published a report that included criticism of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas).
On December 30 the paper published a statement of a reformist student organization, that has criticized Hamas for risking lives of civilians, amongst them children, by hiding its forces in nurseries and hospitals. The statement was published whilst the Iranian government expresses a unified stands against Israel, and Tehran is overwhelmed by demonstrations against Israel."

[Al-Ayyam, Jan. 1, 2009]
Thanks PMW

Iran-backed Hamas Rocket, Mortar Attacks and Nuclear Developments

9,400+ rockets and mortars fired from Gaza since 2003. [1]
3,200+ rockets and mortars fired from Gaza in 2008 alone. [2]
6,500+ rockets and mortars fired from Gaza since Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. [3]
543+ rockets and mortars fired from Gaza into Israeli territory during the ceasefire from June 19 to Dec. 19, 2008. [4]
28 deaths caused by rockets and mortars fired from Gaza into Israel since 2001. The dead include Israelis, Palestinians and foreign workers. Since the ceasefire ended, Iran-backed Palestinian groups in Gaza fired rockets and mortars that killed an Israeli-Arab construction worker and a mother of four who was seeking shelter in a bus station as a rocket warning siren sounded. [5]
1,000+ people in Israel injured from rockets and mortars fired from Gaza since 2001, including Israelis, Palestinians and foreign workers. Since the ceasefire, 44 Israelis have been injured and 200 have been treated for shock. [6]
Thanks Israel Project

It began with this...

The British Foreign Office, November 2nd, 1917
Dear Lord Rothschild,
I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty’s Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet.

“His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the
achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in
Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”
I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.2

Signed,
Arthur James Balfour
[Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs]

Syria is an Occupier-Are You Listening World?

Syria Occupies Lebanon. Again. - Bret Stephens (Wall Street Journal)

As of this minute, Syria occupies at least 177 square miles of Lebanese soil. That you are now reading about it for the first time is as much a scandal as the occupation itself.

The news comes by way of a fact-finding survey of the Lebanese-Syrian border just produced by the International Lebanese Committee for UN Security Council Resolution 1559, an American NGO that has consultative status with the UN. In meticulous detail - supplemented by photographs and satellite images - the authors describe precisely where and how Lebanon has been infiltrated.

Though the land grabs are small affairs individually, they collectively add up to an area amounting to about 4% of Lebanese soil - in U.S. terms, the proportional equivalent of Arizona. Of particular note is that the area of Syrian conquest dwarves that of the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms which amount to an area of about 12 square miles.

It would be nice to see the Arab world protest this case of illegal occupation, given its passions about the subject.