A Newsman Breaks the Mold in Arab World

"I still have the same passion, but it's directed in a different way," he said. "It's not the same idea, it's about being fair."

Theory vs. Practice

Khatib and Rashed speak in similar terms: a disillusionment with what they see as past deceptions, an ideological orthodoxy that squelched dissent. They evince a determination to bring to al-Arabiya what they call balance and fairness, with a savvier notion of what their audience wants. Business coverage, for instance, has helped al-Arabiya become most popular in the lucrative Saudi market, although al-Jazeera says it maintains a commanding lead across the region.

As for news, Rashed, a former editor of Asharq al-Awsat, an influential Saudi-owned daily newspaper, said it is not his job to defend what he called the cause, an Arab nationalist perspective that he said colored the way news traditionally had been framed.

"What is supposed to be the accepted truth, I just don't think is accepted by me," he said.

Rashed is blunt. He accuses Arab journalists of "conspiring not to tell the truth" in their coverage of Iraq, particularly by inflating civilian casualties in U.S. bombings. He points with pride to al-Arabiya's decision to no longer air the anonymous tapes of Iraqi insurgents, believing they gave groups of questionable credibility an unwarranted platform.

But some staff members will say there is sometimes an al-Arabiya in theory, Rashed and Khatib's vision of a new style of Arab news, and an al-Arabiya in practice, where those ideals get muddied. In moments, editorial decisions can become political crises, from Morocco to Iran, and editors at times have decided not to air promotions for news shows to avoid a feared backlash from Arab leaders. Reporters say stories have been killed or pulled after generating too much criticism. In the newsroom, workers whisper about strained relations between King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and the parent company, MBC, which is owned by Walid al-Ibrahim, a brother-in-law of King Fahd, Abdullah's predecessor.

Words like balance and fairness are seen by some as coded language for avoiding controversy; almost everyone talks about self-censorship, even if they contend that is different only in degrees from what their Western colleagues face.

"You come under pressure almost every day," said Mohammed Abdel-Raouf, an Egyptian producer.

On the television behind him, the al-Arabiya news bulletin led with a speech by the Saudi monarch promising gradual political reform by the world's largest oil exporter without violating Islamic principles. Despite breaking news from Iraq and the Gaza Strip, it stayed the top story through the day.

"It is important," he said, "but suppose we have another story? It will still remain our first headline."

Abdel-Raouf, a veteran of the state-controlled Egyptian Gazette, ticks off other subjects: minimal coverage by al-Arabiya of the demonstrations over the cartoons of the prophet Muhammad in a Danish newspaper; less attention to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which he says editors think has begun to bore viewers; 72 hours straight on King Fahd's death last summer, coverage so intense that some on the al-Arabiya staff said they started watching al-Jazeera. Even on breaking stories, the broadcast will routinely cut to business news, "telling viewers this is more important than the news story."

"It is a political point of view, not a news point of view," Abdel-Raouf said. "You don't have to ask about the guidelines because you know what they are. When you hear it once, twice, three times, you don't need anyone to remind you."