Arabic language and foreign correspondents in the Middle East

When I gave my talk at Oxford University a few days ago, I spoke about the lack of language skills among American correspondents in the Middle East. A well-known Western foreign correspondent was in the audience and he/she asked me to qualify what I said and I asked him/her to write me a paragraph and that I would post it. Here is what he/she wrote me (I cite with his/her permission): "Hi As'ad, I did enjoy your talk the other night, although I had a pretty good idea what you would say. Remember that I promised to fill you in on the Arabic language skills of wire service reporters in the Middle East. I think Reuters has gone further than any in enforcing a requirement that all reporters speak Arabic, with some exceptions. The Cairo bureau, for example, has not had a bureau chief or correspondent who does not speak at least some Arabic since the early 1990s. The same applies in most countries, the exceptions being North Africa, where French is the lingua franca and indispensible (it's hard to find some who speaks good Arabic and French, writes fluent English and knows how to report), Iraq, where the bureau chief mainly deals with staff and logistics, and occasionally where the correspondent is dealing with Gulf business, where only a small proportion of our sources would speak Arabic anyway. When I say 'speak Arabic' I certainly mean well enough to conduct an interview with a minister or write a story unaided from a political speech. AP is far behind and AFP a little behind, partly because of the demands of writing in three languages in the region - Arabic, French and English. But Arabic language skills are improving and the pool of speakers has been growing fast. But it is a very difficult language for someone who starts to learn as an adult (even after 30 years I cannot say I can hold my own in every social context). Your point on TV and newspaper correspondents stands, of course. Their organisations are not looking for people with deep knowledge. They want people who know how to serve the organisation and who can write well, regardless of whether what they write is accurate or insightful. Personally, I find it hard to imagine how such people operate. Outside very narrow elitist circles, most Arabs cannot express much nuance in English, unfortunately. Please don't mention my name if you use any of this material,"