Saturday, November 28, 2009

Hariri Media from the inside

A former reporter for Hariri Future TV sent me this (she/he does not want to be identified): "Election times were the worst when Hani Hammoud [chief media and political adviser to mini-Hariri] would come to the TV during those times to lecture us on how to end each report one of them was that each news piece should have "Hezbollah wa moulhakatih" [Hizbullah and its appendages]. That was his genius creation. I never did and they hated me and once they asked me after Hariri assassination to contribute to a propaganda DVD about Hariri and so I wrote an objective piece knowing very well that it will piss them off but I didnt care because I was already planning to leave so they distorted my piece and so I asked them not to mention my name in the credits and they went mad. We had a fight and I resigned. I witnessed how some journalists there deliberately relinquished any professionalism they might have had and how the more they started plunging into Harirism the higher posts they got. Rima Maktabi is a different story. I witnessed how she moved playfully from the weather section, to Alam Sabbah, and now to prime time shows on Arabiyya. In brief, she used to... She would come to me to ask me about "tahreek el nass" everytime she writes a report and ends up spelling them all wrong. I dont think she knows how to dintinsguish between a "dammeh"and a "fatha" (do these words have any translation?)"