Free Republic

Islamist Forum Posts Instructions for Conducting 'Media Jihad' In a message posted March 2, 2008 on the Islamist forum Al-Ikhlas (hosted by Piradius.net in Malaysia), a member calling himself "abumuslim22" urged his fellow forum members to engage in "media jihad," and provided advice and safety tips. The following are excerpts from the posting: [1] "… 1. Exercise patience, because each of the following stages takes time… "2. Become a 'media mujahid'… Next to jihad on the battlefield, this is the most dangerous [type of] jihad, because you are new [to it] and inexperienced… "A. Be careful, and do not trust...

A Jordanian media firm hopes its new TV cartoon series can achieve what politicians have failed to do so far: bridge the cultural divide between East and West. It sounds like a tall order, but the Rubicon firm - named after the river Caesar crossed to establish the Roman Empire - is armed with an equally mighty motto: "to embark on a mission from which one cannot turn back." Even more important is that the cartoon, called "Ben and Izzy" and aimed at 8 to 11 year olds, has royal backing from Jordan's media savvy rulers, King Abdullah II and...

Way back when I was a cub reporter, I got hold of a book about the "art" of interviewing. It was a thin book — no use spending thousands of words to tell a reporter, cub or old Grizzly, to bone up on a subject and let natural curiosity take its course. That thin book came to mind on reading a three-part series in The New York Times about an imam named Reda Shata, who presides over the Islamic Society of Bay Ridge in Brooklyn, N.Y. As far as the art of interviewing goes, the reporter got it exactly backward:...