Breaking News or Breaking Truth?: Mass Media and Politics in the Middle East

On Thursday November 21st 2013 another edition of the ’Henriette van Lynden Lecture’ was organized by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the center for debate De Rode Hoed in Amsterdam. This time dynamics between mass media en politics in the Middle East was the main theme the attending experts discussed during a short lecture and a following panel discussion. Prof. Marwan Kraidy from the University of Pennsylvania, international expert on Arab media and politics, gave a general overview of the historical development of media in the Middle East. Former Director-General of Al Jazeera Wadah Khanfar subsequently talked about his experience at the media concern and the development it went through. During the lecture NOS correspondent Sander van Hoorn was brought live into the venue from Beirut to answer questions from the moderator and the audience. Rami Jarrah was planned to contribute too, but unfortunately technical problems shortened his participation to only a few minutes.