Democracy, terrorism, religion and media

Issues pertaining to democracy, terrorism and religion in media have taken centre stage as the 4-day 54th General Assembly of International Press Institute Kenya (IPI) World Congress comes to an end. The conference has been running May 20-24, 2005.

Western media were put on the spot and accusations levelled against them for spreading propaganda and justifying actions of Western powers. However, Western journalists at the conference denied such involvement.

The theme 'Reporting on the Islamic World' nearly caused a stir at the conference, being termed as prejudicing the mood and tone of discussions by the Western media, Kenya Times reported.

Journalists from the US, UK and Israel claimed that it portrayed them as ignorant of Muslim issues, and claimed that the organisers had hijacked the theme to lay an assault on all Western journalists.

On the other hand, journalists from the Arab world maintained that owing to their intellectual and religious backgrounds, they were incapable of unprejudiced coverage of these issues.

However, a former Kenyan UN official and journalist, Salim Lone, accused the Western media of selective reporting, targeting Muslims and Arabs for pillorying as terrorists and being violent, especially after the September 11, 2001 US bombings.