Maghreb Roundtable: Global vs. Local: Television in the Maghreb
While pan-Arab satellite television has transformed daily life and reshaped cultural identity throughout the Arab world, state-controlled local media in the Maghreb has been slow to adjust. Speaking at the CSIS Middle East Program’s seventh Maghreb Roundtable, Abdallah Schleifer, Washington bureau chief at al-Arabiya, and Mohammed Alami, chief Washington correspondent for al-Jazeera, analyzed pan-Arab television’s impact on the relationship between North African rulers and the local media outlets that they ultimately control. While the two experts disagreed on the extent to which pan-Arab satellite television is effecting changes within local media, both stressed that state media outlets must provide objective coverage of domestic news if they hope to regain influence with their people.
