A Closed Shop Media:
I was looking up inormation on Arab media ownership when I came across the minutes of a conference on Arab media held during March 2005. It was titled "Arab Media, Power and Influence" and it was sponsored by various groups, including Woodrow Wilson (Princeton), James A. Baker (yep, Rice), and the IISS.
What was shocking, or maybe it should not have been, was that almost all the Arab participants were either directly or indirectly employees of two ruling houses of the Gulf monarchies who own these major media outlets. The Arab participants were from Alhayat (published in London and reportedly owned by Prince Khalid Bin Sultan al-Saud), Asharq Alawsat (published in London and reportedly co-owned by Prince Salman al-Saud), Alarabiya TV (Saudi but broadcasts from Dubai, and has the same ownership as Asharq Alawsat), and Aljazeera (Qatar, and owned by an al-Thani shaikh).Then there was James Abourezq and a couple of other people. The rest were all either full-time staff of these venerable organizations or regular columnists and commentators. No one else of the media anywhere in the vast Arab world was deemed to have anything to say about the important issue except for these three semi-state-owned organizations.

They talked about some general aspects of Arab media including, oddly, "how ownership of Arab outlets drives media agenda". But that is not what they really talked about: the topic was plainly open for everyone to see, in the participants to the conference. It is not clear who financed that conference.....but in this case I am a betting man.

It is noteworthy (an understatement) that many pan-Arab media outlets have been snapped up and are now owned by Saudi conglomerates, including all the satellite multi-channels operated by ART, MBC, Rotana, and LBC of Lebanon (control of LBC was purchased recently by Prince al-Waleed from another Saudi potentate). They also pull the strings of a few newspapers that tow the official Saudi line on all issues in other Gulf states, especially in Kuwait and Bahrain- no need to mention Lebanon here. Now if they can only make a deal with Mel Karmazin and manage to shut up Howard Stern.

Now that the pressures of the 'unifying' threat of an American attack have receded, Iran's Ahmadinejad is coming under intense fire at home, from both rival politicians and college students who normally have little love for the hardliners. This must be seen in the context of parliamentary elections next spring and presidential elections in 2009. It is possible that Ahmadinejad will be voted out of office just a few months after Bill Clinton moves back into the White House (if she wins he'll probably be confined to the Lincoln Bedroom at night).

BTW on Oil prices: whatever happened to threats and predictions about a year ago that Saudi Arabia would follow a strategy of increasing oil production in order to halve crude prices and apply pressure to the Iranian econmy? The threats were tied to increased Iranian influence in Iraq and were taken quite seriously in the West, although this site dismissed them at the time mainly because of doubts about production capacity and the budgetary, and internal political, impact on Saudi Arabia and other Gulf producers. We also speculated at the time that the thousands of princes would not stand for having less dinero and lowering their lifestyles. Oil prices have since increased by about 30% or so, depending on the base price used for calculation. Apparently the princely Samsons decided to keep the temple standing because they did not like losing all that dinero and incurring public ire.
To paraphrase a famous lame duck: If they really want to beat the troublemakers, they should keep on shopping.
Cheers
Mohammed