BILL KOVACH, Chairman, Committee of Concerned Journalists: Except for a rare few who have a serious and deep understanding of the world today, most American journalists today feel that they're walking on spongy ground, trying to cover a world that we're not sure we really understand all that well. As we've heard just on the last panel from Andy Kohut and Dwight Morris, they're being called upon to report on a changing world that, despite the history of involvement in world wars that consumed almost all of the 20th century, has a limited audience among the American people.

To make matters worse, they're being asked to report on trends like the ramification of globalization and the world of religion, neither of which are subjects that we have spent a lot of time understanding and analyzing. All of this occurs now in a world that's been made more transparent by the revolution in communications technology, so that the work of American journalists is susceptible, as never before, to second-guessing by expert journalists around the world.

How we, as Americans, tell the story, especially after the display of jingoism that was reflected in news reporting immediately after September 11, how we tell the story is now being skeptically questioned by journalists and others abroad. If U.S. journalists can't provide information in a context that is useful to large parts of the world, we run the risk of marginalizing ourselves and the value of our work, just when the citizens of the world are most in need of a more vigorous stream of fast, reliable, accurate information in a context which allows informed and effective decisions at all levels of society.

As we've just heard from Dwight Morris, his survey of 218 editors of newspapers in the United States finds that nearly two-thirds of them believe that their international coverage is only fair to poor. And while two-thirds of them also acknowledge that they have large ethnic and immigrant populations in their areas and greater ties between their communities and the international community than ever before, those potentials for localizing international news are not being effectively used. As I interpret the findings of Andy Kohut and Dwight Morris in their surveys, editors realize the flow of international events today and the changing nature of their own constituencies offer them a demand and an opportunity for better international coverage, but they're unsure about how to organize themselves to take advantage of that.

"Generally speaking, the U.S. media's coverage of Islam and Afghanistan and Pakistan is fairly stereotypical," says Najam Sethi.

NAJAM SETHI, Co-founder and Editor, The Friday Times, Pakistan: Pakistan has been in the eye of the storm for a long time. We have dictators who act like democrats and democrats who act like dictators. The two research surveys that people talked about in the first session are very interesting. The interesting thing is that most American editors admit that their coverage of foreign news is poor. And among the major reasons cited are, apparently, the high cost of providing foreign news and the fact that most Americans lack the background to follow and understand foreign news. Perhaps later during the question-and-answer session one can talk about how these costs can be cut, because I can tell you a lot of interesting stories about how this money is spent by Americans when they come to our part of the world. (Laughter among audience). And so costs need not be that high.

But what is even more interesting is the revelation that the post-9/11 spurt in foreign interest, in the American media and the public, is falling, and may, according to most American editors surveyed in this report, revert back to form once the crisis is over. I'm surprised by this observation. I'm surprised that the American media and the public are apparently inclined to be insular, even as increasingly interventionist strains in American foreign policy are beginning to manifest themselves with far-reaching implications, not just in the areas where American foreign policy is active, but in terms of its blow-back to America.

After all, most of you will remember that shortly before George W. Bush became President, he was asked a question about who is the man running the show in Pakistan, who is Pakistan's leader. I think he didn't know the name of General Musharraf at that time. And now this is the same President Bush who almost on a daily basis is calling up his friend General Musharraf in Islamabad. This, incidentally, is the same General Musharraf who was a pariah shortly before September 11, both from the point of view of the American administration and, I dare say, because there wasn't too much interest in what Pakistan was up to in terms of the American media, and who today is a valued friend and an ally of America.

But the point I'd like to make is that it's not just the American media and the public whose interest in foreign news has been lacking. I suppose much the same sort of thing could be said about the American think tanks and the American intelligence community that did not anticipate the rise in the challenge of Islamic fundamentalism as a global rather than local force to contend with.

By 1993, people like Osama bin Laden and others were already making forays into Afghanistan via Pakistan. And some of us were talking and shrieking and screaming our heads off, and nobody was listening to us. Indeed, perhaps the only person who was alarmed at that time about what was in store was the Egyptian President, Mr. Mubarak, who at that time leaned on the Americans to tell the Pakistanis to crack down on some of these elements who were coming in from Egypt, landing up in Peshawar, and then going off into Afghanistan to get trained. But nobody in Washington was aware of this threat that was being created at that time.

If I may now come to the way the American media are perceived in Pakistan, the perception is that the American media tend to follow the priorities and foreign policy stresses of the U.S. administration, rather than anticipating or articulating them more independently. I think this is acutely perceived to be the case as far as the Pakistani press and the media and the Pakistani public are concerned. That is how they see the American media. I say that despite some very brilliant independent and excellent coverage that we've had of recent events from the top American newspapers.

Of course, in the 9/11 period, the U.S. media have responded to the situation with a surfeit of reports. But, frankly speaking, I'm not sure how well the U.S. media have responded or succeeded in independently analyzing the military and political situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan with regard to American foreign policy objectives in the region. This is especially true of many American reporters who accompanied American troops into Afghanistan, first when the aerial war against the Taliban was launched sometime in October or November, and they were in an alliance with the Northern Alliance, and now when American troops are reportedly trying to mop up remnants of the Taliban and the al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.

The danger here is that many reporters end up reporting briefings, rather than reporting events. This approach is all too evident in another case. I refer to the Indo-Pak conflict, which has generated nuclear war fears and scenarios in the American media in recent weeks, even as we in India and Pakistan have been relatively laid back about the possibility of a nuclear war. Now, this is curious. The Kashmir conflict, as you know, is as old as the two countries themselves, since 1947. And India and Pakistan have fought three wars over that dispute since then.

Yet, until now, there was no American media attention or hype, either about the possession of nuclear weapons by both sides, or about the chances of the Kashmir conflict provoking a nuclear holocaust in the region.

Indeed, the low-intensity conflict in Kashmir has already claimed 30,000 lives in the last decade, but the American media have not paid sufficient attention to it. And now it is page one stuff; it is page one stuff because links have apparently been sought or established between the Islamic Jihadis, who are doing the fighting in Kashmir, and the various Luskhers and Jihadi elements in Pakistan, who are thought to have links with al-Qaeda.

There is a fear in the administration, and therefore in the American press, that perhaps such Jihadi elements, in alliance with al-Qaeda, want to provoke an Indo-Pak war so that the focus of U.S.-Pak attention shifts from the pursuit of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Indo-Pak problem.

Generally speaking, the U.S. media's coverage of Islam and Afghanistan and Pakistan is fairly stereotypical. Most reporters have superficially focused, for example, on the religious seminaries, the Madrassahs, as everybody calls them, that are found in the tribal border lands of Pakistan and Afghanistan. But no effort has been made to study, to try and understand and explain to the American public, the nature, culture, the politics of Jihad, and of other Islamic institutions, parties, groups, and sects in the region, how these have come to impinge on Pakistani state institutions like the army and the courts and civil society, and what are the longer-term implications of this phenomenon on the future of democracy, U.S. populations, and the war against terrorism.

I should like to now touch very briefly on one other aspect of how the Pakistani media perceive the U.S. media. The anti-Americanism purveyed by the Pakistani media is aimed not just at U.S. foreign policy agendas in the region, but also at the American press, which is accused of acting uncritically.

There is a conspiracy theory in our part of the world that everyone believes, and that is that the American media are controlled by the Jewish lobby, and from this perception follow a lot of untruths and follow a lot of very dangerous perceptions that can have a very important bearing on the rise of anti-Americanism and anti-American sentiments in our part of the world. And this is how religion comes to permeate international political discourse in Muslim lands, and everything becomes one big, all-encompassing unjust Jewish conspiracy. Of course, I might add, this has a lot to do with the basic perception that U.S. foreign policy and the U.S. media are unjustly pro-Israel and anti-Palestine

	"We know more about you than you know about us," says Emad Adeeb.

EMAD ADEEB, Chairman, Al Alam Al Youm Newspaper, Egypt: I might be a total failure in a lot of things in my life, but one thing I'm good at is that I understand my audience in the Arab world. I've been introducing the "On the Air" program five days a week for the last eight years, being on the air and receiving phone calls from my audience. It's the first and the only continuing chat show in the Arab world for this number of years. I have my hands on the pulse of my audience. That's why what I claim is not the truth, but at least reflects what our audience in the Arab world really feels. We are talking about a subject in an era of globalization. The issue is that a lot of people don't know how globalization is being perceived from our side of the world. We know a lot more about Americans than they know about us. For instance, how many of the respectable audience here in this room have seen an Arabic film? Okay, let's say 15 percent. But if I'm in the same room in Cairo and I have, let's say, a thousand people and I ask the question, How many of you have seen an American movie? What was the last time? Most of them will tell me just half an hour before coming to this room.

How many of you have eaten bamia and molokhia? Two or three, five, ten of this room. But if I ask who has eaten at Burger King or a McDonald's, everybody in the room in Cairo and Beirut or in Palestine or in Saudi Arabia would raise his hand. In the Pew survey which was done, a lot of people didn't know who was the American Vice President. But I can tell you that a lot of people in Egypt and in Lebanon and in the Gulf know who the American Vice Pres-ident is and who Mr. Ashcroft is. We know. We follow. What happens in your part of the world is our local news. What happens in our part of the world is your foreign news.Then, when you come to look at Israeli affairs and Middle East affairs in the last 25 years, Israel is a local American [political issue] because of the structure of the Jewish community inside Israel. In New York, what happens in Israel is very much a local New York matter, because you have a Jewish community in New York that is larger than what you have in Israel. But for Arab matters, it's part of foreign affairs.

When I was in the first year at the College of Mass Communication in Cairo, they gave you the classic five W's of how to write news. When we see the coverage from the 11th of September until today in the Middle East, especially the Israeli invasion of Palestinian land, or even the suicide bombings which took place in Israel, we have the story, but you never find the element why. One of the W's-why, why this has happened.

I went to Ramallah. I stayed a long time to understand why somebody blows himself up. The manufacturing of a suicide bomber -- why? You never know that 72 percent of the Palestinian population lives on [less than] $2 per day. This is under the standard of poverty of the World Bank and the IMF. And this $2, because there is no Palestinian currency, is linked to the Israeli currency. The Palestinian standard of living is actually 55 cents a day. Seventy-two percent of Palestinians are living on 55 cents per day.

I have to make it clear here that I always hold the position that the killing of any civilian, any civilian, whatever his nationality is, whatever his religion is, whatever his faith is, whatever his political ideas are, whatever his social class is, is something forbidden for me. We are against killing civilians --Jewish civilians, Arab civilians, Americans, Pale- stinians, Afghanis,Pakistanis. No civilian should be killed.

When you come to the area, you come and visit us in what I call the American Express Press Tour -- 72 hours, or five days visiting. You stay at the same hotel where the 150,000 colleagues before you have stayed. You eat at the same restaurant because you've been given its name. You have the same short list of people to interview who have been interviewed [before], either from the government or from the opposition -- they become official spokesmen, even for the opposition. You go to the same places; you buy the same presents for your wives or girlfriends or mistresses, because you have the same address from your friends before you. You don't do anything out of the norm, and you come writing the same story with the same slogan -- a minute-and-a-half bite, or a 500-word story -- and you think that you know the Middle East and you know the action or reaction of this area. And then when a crisis happens, you are interviewed as an expert about the Middle East.

We know about you more than you know about us. But the disaster in the story is that those who have the power are the ones who have the lesser knowledge, and those who haven't got the power know more about the other. We can't affect you, but you can affect us.

In this cultural isolationism in the mind of an American person in the Midwest, he sees only America as the map of the world, and other countries are just small places there. [You are] too self-centered, too isolated from the world. Why suddenly is the Middle East important? Because those killers, those terrorists have committed the biggest sin, which is killing [your] people, the first attack on [your] land after Pearl Harbor. I'm totally against what happened [on] the 11th of September. I e-mailed all my friends in the United States sympathizing with them. I had my share of insults from my audience defending the American position. I was attacked as being pro-American, of [belonging to] the CIA.

You always talk about rulers or mullahs or ayatollahs or people in the opposition, but you were never concerned about so-called "moderates," people who are affected by you, affected by your culture, by your American way of life, who love America, and they are most of the people in the Arab world or in the third world. We are not anti-American. We are not [against the] American way of life. If you ask most of the people in the Arab world, in the Muslim world, [they are] against the American policy, against the double standards. But we are not programmed as Arabs or Muslims to be anti-American. No. It is the policy of the administration.

You never thought about what would happen to moderation in the Arab world. What will happen to the moderates because of these American policies? Somebody like me on his program can't come out with a solid answer to why America is doing what it is, or why America is negative toward what's happening in Palestine, or why the American President doesn't want a timetable for a Palestinian state, or why they have made their position very early against the Arab or the Islamic world, or why they insist on having this war against Iraq. Saddam Hussein is not my hero. I hate the man. I wish I had a gun and could kill him, but this is not the way to change the world.

We have an idea about how Americans perceive us: Muslims, and especially Arabs, have got a built-in hatred for Americans, and they act in reaction to some religious and cultural values. They endorse violence and glorify suicide attacks. Just being an Arab or a Muslim, I have always to take my shirt off to show you that I don't have a dynamite belt.

"Why do they hate us?" It's a question that's being raised in Time and Newsweek. It's your own starting point toward Arabs and Muslims. We don't hate you. We are in sharp difference with your administration. To make just a point about this: We have 800,000 Americans living in the Middle East, and not one incident since the 11th of September against them.

The term "Islamic terrorist." Mr. Lou Dobbs, one of the most prominent journalists, in his "Moneyline" program on CNN last week [used] the phrase "Islamic terrorist." Do you know how much this could offend people? If there is somebody who is suffering from so-called fanatics in the Arab world, it is us in the Arab world. It's people like Najam Sethi in Pakistan. You know that one morning they can take power and he would be in prison and I would be in prison. How much are Americans or the American administration really helping us to face this?

I'll give you some statistics from my viewers, to show how we really think. In answer to a question, Are you against the U.S. value system and way of life? Six percent said yes, five percent said don't know, 89 percent said no, we are not against the American way of life or value system. The second question: Do you think that the 11th of September harmed or helped the Palestinian issue and the image of Arabs and Muslims in America? Ten percent said we don't know; 21 percent said, yes, it helped; 69 percent said it harmed Muslims and Arabs and the image of Arabs.

"What became apparent in the ensuing coverage of the September 11 story was a loss of objectivity and professionalism in reporting," says Doyinsola Abiola.

DOYINSOLA ABIOLA, Editor-in-Chief, Concord Group of Newspapers, Nigeria: The African world, like the rest of the world, virtually went into shock on September 11, 2001. First was the shock of the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and on the Pentagon in Washington, followed by the shock of it happening on American soil. That was almost a heresy. Everything we hold to be true has suddenly been turned upside down. And yet we turn for explanation and interpretation.

Of course, the media were equally astounded. However, on that evening they had a job to do. And I must say they rose up to the occasion. African media were filled with horror and condemnation of the terrorist attacks on America. But they were also quick to ask for strength and not revenge from America. Some of them blamed America for "bringing the attack on itself."

And during the lull period when America was weighing its options and right of reply, African media withdrew from the attack story to more pressing local matters. Mohammed Halama, a columnist for The Daily Trust, the Nigerian newspaper, led the call for a retreat when he wrote, "For the citizens of much of Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America, September 11 represented pretty little change in their lives."

[Another writer] went further, to predict that "the United States is not going to pulverize Afghanistan anytime soon." What he and indeed what nobody knew then was that the U.S.-led offensive would drive the Taliban out of two-thirds of Afghanistan in a few short weeks. The U.S. offensive touched a raw nerve in the African media, which went from full condemnation to unsolicited advice to the American government and people. The Johannesburg Mail and Guardian focused on "rage and protest" from Kabul to Indonesia in its headline for October 8th. Protest against the war became standard headlines in Nigeria, Tanzania, Kenya, and South Africa. They all had a brief interlude in the American-bashing to celebrate the so-called liberation of Afghan women before focusing on what may happen next.

What became apparent in the ensuing coverage of the September 11 story was a loss of objectivity and professionalism in reporting. Both African and American journalists became more participants than objective observers, sacrificing facts for opinion. One U.S. network wants to know why the military is not deploying ground troops in division- size force in Kabul, whereas another orders the Pentagon to extend the war by occupying Libya and invading Iraq.

Undoubtedly, the greatest casualty of the war [are] the media, both the U.S. and the international media.

How much of September 11 reporting is accessible? How do journalists broaden the discourse on Islam and the war on terror to include views that are being given short shift? How do we bridge the gulf of misunderstanding between the rich and the poor states? How do we begin to create an understanding of people's aspirations between and within our borders? How do we expose bigotry of all kinds?

Just as the U.S. media coverage of September 11 and the subsequent war on terrorism has drawn attention to the best of American journalism, it also offers an opportunity for improvement. Much improvement is needed in the apportionment of time and attention given to other countries on international issues. The American media, reportedly, carried more stories on Afghanistan on page one four months after the attack than in the previous four decades. [One magazine wrote this year that] in the 1990's 14 countries received 82 percent of the airtime devoted to foreign coverage on television evening news. The remaining time was split among 136 countries, with one in five nations receiving no coverage at all. Beyond the top 14 countries, the view remained dangerously narrow. Europe got more coverage than all of Africa and Central and South America combined. India and Pakistan together got less than North Korea, and Italy drew more minutes than Colombia, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan, among others. Afghanistan, though covered closely in 1980, got less airtime in the 1990's than in a single month last fall, when the nightly news could no longer ignore it.

A cardinal lesson from September 11 is the fact that the world is indeed a global village with interactive consequences. Hence, the need for a better and effective coverage of our interactive world. More balanced coverage of Africa will reveal that some African countries are at various levels of democratization and development of their economies. Witness the founding of the New Partnership for African Development, which has been vigorously promoted by 12 African states, with Senegal, Nigeria, South Africa, and Algeria. It may not be the panacea for all Africa's economic problems. It is, nonetheless, a bold step that deserves attention.

Mozambique, once devastated by war, is now among the most rapidly growing countries in Africa. Senegal is confronting the AIDS epidemic with huge success. Tanzania and Mauritius are promoting stronger private sectors, which are attracting foreign investment.

A new generation of African has emerged; corporate leaders and entrepreneurs can be found in all sectors of their societies, even as old stereotypes die hard. Perhaps the greatest shortcoming in the wake of September 11 is the reporting about Islam as a growing religion. The media have always had problems covering all religions, especially the militants within various religions. Islam is now a focal issue because of September 11, but religious strain showed [in the] rapid growth of militancy, which has occurred without much notice from the media.

Even the spread of radical Islam all over the world has been long coming. And thankfully there's a growing literature in academia on this topic for those who wish to learn. Using clich�s to describe what we do not understand can only breed more hatred than understanding. The American journalists, in particular, and all others have their job well cut out if and when they decide to rise up to their responsibility.

MARCUS BRAUCHLI, National Editor, The Wall Street Journal: Bill had hoped that I would be provocative and challenge the speakers. In fact, I think, [considering] the indictment that they delivered, we could probably save some court time and plead guilty, in large measure.

I think the best American journalism from abroad is very good. It is subtle and insightful and gives Americans context. I think a lot of American journalism from abroad doesn't live up to that, and, as Bill suggested at the beginning, U.S. media are now watched everywhere around the world. By watched I mean over the Internet, not necessarily people watching a broadcast, or in some cases people are watching U.S. broadcasts as well. People have an opportunity to compare what the U.S. media say with what their media say and what they think about the world, which leads to the exposures of really fundamental misunderstandings, and, I think, heightens some of the contradictions out there. An example that comes to mind was the bombing by the United States of the Chinese mission in Belgrade. I was in Shanghai at the time, and I think all 1.3 billion people were more or less in agreement that it was an intentional act by the U.S. In the U.S. you had trouble finding anybody who didn't think that the U.S. military just screwed up again and dropped a bomb by accident on the Chinese mission.

But I think the U.S. media do have some fundamental problems in the way they cover international affairs, which lead to the kinds of problems that were de-scribed here. If you listen to Defense Department press conferences, which are broadcast around the world, you see journalists standing up and talking to Donald Rumsfeld about what we're going to do in Afghanistan and whether we're going to drop bombs. That may seem harmless in Washington, but I think around the world there's a perception that the press and the government are one. That perception, I think, is exacerbated by the fact that, in a lot of countries where people are watching, the media and the government are one. Or the media and the government, if not the same entity, are so closely in cahoots because they represent the leader of the country that they might as well be one.

We do send many journalists overseas as first-timers who aren't seasoned, experienced, [fluent in] the new language of the countries they're going to. The "American Express Press Tour" is very real; I've been on it. I brought back some of those things. But my newspaper has five people who live in China who speak Chinese, and we have eight people in Japan who speak Japanese. During the post-9/11 period a lot of newspapers, [small, regional papers], sent people overseas, and those journalists may be able to open eyes because they're seeing the world with fresh eyes a lot of times, because they are arriving for the first time in a country. But they don't have the experience to judge some of the things they're seeing. They're seeing it on the "American Express Press Tour" and they're not getting much depth in some cases. It takes a lot of time and experience to get depth.

People are, therefore, very dependent on U.S. officials for their information -- it's the press briefing thing that Najam talked about. A lot of international coverage in the United States comes from Washington and is sourced to people in Washington who are attempting to express the thoughts of officials in countries overseas and people overseas. We the media, take for granted more than we should, by far, what people in Washington tell us about what people in other countries are thinking, as opposed to going to those people in other countries and those governments in other countries and finding out what they're thinking.

All this leads to this very big credibility gap. I speak as an American who lived overseas, and so perhaps I can be contradicted by people here, but I think if you talk to people in other countries, they don't trust the American media because they think the American media are in bed with the government. In a lot of countries I've worked in there's a sense that the United States is a proselytizing Christian nation that's got a technology-powered economy that devours everything in sight and hypocrisy rules in Wash-ington. The American media, by repeating everything that the American government thinks and says, a lot of times play into that.

	Najam Sethi greets members of the audience.

Question

PAOLO SOTERO: I'm a correspondent here in Washington for O Estado de Sao Paolo, a newspaper in Brazil.

From what you said, my impression is that the U.S. media are not as powerful anymore, if they ever were, in terms of agenda setting for you. Is the influence of the U.S. media in your part of the world declining because of those perceptions you convey, or did I understand things the wrong way?

EMAD ADEEB: One of the problems in our part of the world is that we are not only consuming American products but we are also consuming American culture and American information. For instance, we have this experience of, let's say we have a story about me in the Middle East, and it's been reported by the American media, and it comes through CNN back to me. The CNN correspondent in Cairo reported it to the head office in Atlanta, and then it's beamed back to the Middle East.

Our local news depends, as its source on what really happened to me, on you. The disaster is, what if what you have reported about me that comes back to me is wrong? How will that affect me?

We heard about the terrorist bomb in the streets of Cairo in 1994 from CNN. It happened in downtown, in the center of the capital, [and we heard about it] from CNN before watching it on Egypt TV. Here is the effect and here is the influence. We are consuming your news, your information.

Since the 11th of September we are getting all the information about the al-Qaeda organization from America, not anywhere else.

Question

JOYCE DAVIS: I'm with Knight-Ridder, and just on that point, I would like you to comment on the effect that al-Jazeera has had, because clearly, I think, the Arab media have had some effect on the American media and their reporting of September 11 and also the continuing battle with terrorism. The other question that I wanted to put to you: Have you noticed any improvement at all in the coverage of the Arab world or of Africa?

The reason I bring this up is that, when I first began international affairs coverage in Washington 12 years ago with NPR, very few Arab voices were on the air; there was very little objective discussion of Islam. There was no coverage of Muslim holidays in this country. There now is coverage of Muslim holidays; [newspapers] now treat Muslims as Americans. I mean, at least I have seen a clear improvement. It's not where it ought to be, but there's a vast difference in the past decade in how the American media treated these issues and how they're treated now. Haven't you noticed that?

EMAD ADEEB: There are a lot of positive things. If I said no, I would be really stupid. But I would like to tell you, concerning al-Jazeera, that the American media went to al-Jazeera because they were the only ones inside al-Qaeda, the only ones who had the permission, and because they had their camera there. Since they started not having their camera there, [the American media] haven't used them. And they were the only ones who had the bin Laden tapes. Al-Jazeera was sexy to the American media because they had a scoop which you couldn't get anywhere else. But I wish they'd go to the Arab media and Arab people and talk to third world people, not only on an exclusivebasis but trying to [dig] deeper into what's happened, to know more about them. But I acknowledge, yes, there was a tremendous change in dealing with the area after the 11th of September.

Doyinsola Abiola talks to an audience member.

Question

QUESTIONER: I want to know whether you're able to train your reporters to have a good grasp of the economic change that is going on. Many times the economic chaos, the economic chasms between sectors and population really create political turmoil. But I don't think most reporters in any part of the world really have a grip on that. And I wonder if you all think that's important.

NAJAM SETHI: Well, yes, it is very, very important. The problem in our part of the world is that 90 percent of our reporters have no formal training in journalism. And you can't expect them to understand economics and matters like that. That has a lot to do with the lack of education, ignorance, illiteracy, and so on and so forth.

Marcus was talking about what can be done to promote a freer media in our part of the world. I'll talk about Pakistan and I'll say this: It's very important for you to export the real values of American civilization and not those that are perceived to be such, not gunboat diplomacy and imperialism but democracy and human rights and protection for minorities and women's liberation and empowerment and things like that.

Unfortunately, not enough is done on that score by Americans and not enough is done by the American media to promote such values in our part of the world. I think more on that would be very helpful because, after all, at the end of the day it is elites in our part of the world that take decisions. And these elites are very susceptible to ideas.

I remember when President Bush made his speech [after September 11] in which he said that people are envious of our freedoms; they hate us because they don't have the same freedoms and the sort of values we have. No, that's not true. America is loved for those things; it's not hated for those things. There are other issues, which Emad pointed out, on which there is a perception that perhaps American foreign policy has not been just, and that is where the misunderstanding lies. We need more from America in terms of promoting the very values that make America great.

Question

TRUDY RUBIN: I'm from the Philadelphia Inquirer. I just wanted to ask Najam and Emad how September 11 has affected the discussion in your community of editors and journalists about their own coverage in your respective countries. What have been the debates and the problems that have been fostered by trying to follow up on 9/11?

Emad, I am curious whether there has been any discussion amongst top Egyptian journalists, or what your thoughts have been, about what kind of changes might be needed internally and how 9/11 has made you think about them in terms of self-censorship or controls that are imposed or inability to get the information from your own readers, or even the kinds of talk show guests that you have or don't have or might want to have.

EMAD ADEEB: I have to be frank with you. There was a lot of hypocrisy in a lot of guests that I had on during the first two or three months after the 11th of September. When you sit with him before the program or even after the program and you invite him for a cup of coffee or for dinner, he's against what happened the 11th of September.

I had something called the wa l�kin. Wa l�kin in Arabic means "but" -- I was the wa l�kin or the "but" doctor. Everybody would start saying that it was wrong, what happened at the 11th of September, wa l�kin-but � and they'd start giving all justifications for this, and I had always to leave my role as a moderator and start entering into a kind of a quarrel with the guest. I discovered something: that you can be very hypocritical with a ruler because you want a post or you want to be close to them.

But there is another hypo-crisy, which is talking to the people or feeding them the emotions they want. This is a big disaster.

A few people came out in the Middle East and said you are going in the wrong direction. Bin Laden is not Islam, and what happened degrades this great religion, and even if we are anti-American or we are against the American policy, this is not the way to reply to their injustice.