We heartily welcome Information Minister Tarek Mitri’s call on Tuesday for the creation of a comprehensive media law in Lebanon.
Translation: “Hey guys, here’s our chance to get money from the government.”
We have seen the merger of text, sound and image across a variety of platforms, and yet in Lebanon we still have discrete – and contradictory – laws for published, audiovisual and electronic media. Indeed, the reality has surpassed the legal norms of Lebanon years ago.
Translation “We are being screwed by the internet and we blame the government for it.”
Mitri is highly qualified intellectually for the endeavor of introducing new legislation, but he is also politically astute enough to know that he would have to secure support from both sides of Lebanon’s political divide for such an initiative.
( Kissing A** )
the state can lead this process of creating the environment to foster the growth of our news media. [..] The new media system, meanwhile, does not adhere to the strict old delineation between private and public sectors; a welter of issues surrounds the necessary reinvention of the media’s business model
Translation: The government should protect newspapers by subsidizing them and if necessary making things difficult for competing new media”
Needless to say. That’s a whole load of kool aid. We are seeing this all over the world with newspapers try to grapple with the fact that they’re losing relevance in today’s world. Also, the Daily star is not suffering because the government is not “fostering the right environment”, it’s suffering because it is a lousy newspaper with a lousy website and lousy management. Don’t blame others for your own failures.
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Note: Posts with titles starting with an ❊ (asterisk) are my opinion posts. I used this system to separate long posts from quick links and comments.
Hello, my name is Mustapha and I've been blogging about Lebanese society, business and politics since February 2005.
excellent post Mr. Mustapha
the daily star is lousy, especially its op-eds.
but don’t worry, legislation in lebanon means jack shit. they can pass whatever laws they want, but the government is too divided, bankrupt and lazy to enforce anything beyond a few cases that need to be made into an example every now and then (recall the intellectual property laws in place). owing to its system’s very corrupt nature, lebanon will never become a police state. if there is anything we learn in lebanon, it is that we do not need a strong state, and we need less government, and more decentralization. if you have a strong state in lebanon, the politicians will use it to oppress us further.
let there be anarchy!
“Let there be anarchy” is not exactly the rallying cry I had in mind, but thanks