Papers by Lawrence Pintak
In 1997, as Indonesia\u27s economy was crumbling, I moved my family from Jakarta to Bali, putting... more In 1997, as Indonesia\u27s economy was crumbling, I moved my family from Jakarta to Bali, putting some distance between nay children and the gathering stoma clouds in the capital. We settled on a house in a village near the island\u27s spiritual heart, Ubud, built by a well-known documentary-maker who had been killed in a freak accident. Just before we moved in, my wife visited a dukun, or traditional seer. The spirit of the land on which the house was built, the dukun warned, took a human life every few years. It intended to take a female life next. For my wife, whose own bloodline extends back to Indonesia\u27s other mystical power center, the royal kraton (palace) of Solo on the island of Java, there was no question. We had two daughters; we would find another house. I did not object. I had been in Indonesia long enough to know one did not challenge the unseen forces. There is light and there is darkness the village headman had told me a few days before the warning. They must always be kept in balance
Journalism: Theory, Practice & Criticism, 2021
Arab Media & Society, 2007
Indonesia, the world’s third largest democracy, has been called a template for Muslim political r... more Indonesia, the world’s third largest democracy, has been called a template for Muslim political reform and has the potential to serve as a bridge between the United States and the Islamic world. Indonesian journalists play a vital role. Since the collapse of the Suharto regime in the late 1990s, the Indonesian media sector has experienced its own revolution. A nationwide survey of 600 Indonesian journalists finds that while the influence of Islam in the newsroom is increasing, journalists support the separation of mosque and state and reject militant Islam. Their attitude toward the United States has improved under Obama and, while skeptical of American motives, they support continued American aid. Although most reject Suharto-era government-mouthpiece media functions, they have not yet fully embraced the role of watchdog. They say that the industry as a whole, and they as individuals, are still not free, but cite their own lack of professionalism and poor ethics as the greatest thr...
Arab Media & Society, 2007
Daoud this station evolved from a purely Internet operation. Tell me about the origins. Kuttab: W... more Daoud this station evolved from a purely Internet operation. Tell me about the origins. Kuttab: Well it actually started as an experiment. I was attending a conference in 2000 in Jordan with the International Press Institute and the Jordanian Minister of Information who was boasting that in Jordan the Internet is not censored, there are no proxies, anybody can do anything on the Internet. And I knew that in Jordan private radio was not allowed so I said I'm going to start a radio station on the Internet. And I did and it was a big success. Jordan is very close to Palestine, and there are FM radio stations in Palestine, so we asked stations there to download some of our radio programs and re-broadcast them
As darkness fell on Tahrir Square the night of Feb. 1, a giant makeshift TV screen broadcast Al J... more As darkness fell on Tahrir Square the night of Feb. 1, a giant makeshift TV screen broadcast Al Jazeera\u27s live coverage of the Egyptian uprising to the enthusiastic crowd. The channel would later transmit Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak\u27s speech, in which he announced that he would not stand for reelection but would stay in office for the remainder of his term; below the screen, the protesters chanted their displeasure at what they viewed as this insufficient concession
Journal of Religious & Theological Information, 2017
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The International Encyclopedia of Journalism Studies, 2019
The Bush administration has charged that reporters at Al Jazeera and other Arab media outlets are... more The Bush administration has charged that reporters at Al Jazeera and other Arab media outlets are biased against the US. Whether or not such an allegation is true, it raises the central question of what influences are at work on Arab journalists at this crucial time of turmoil in the region and change in Arab media. What are their core values? To what degree do religious beliefs and ethno-nationalist attitudes shape their coverage? How do they view US policy and other regional and international issues? What do they define as the role of a journalist in the modem Arab and/or Islamic worlds? This study analyzes the responses of 517 Arab journalists who participated in the first broad, regional survey examining attitudes and values. It found that Arab journalists see the achievement of political and social change as the prime mission of Arab journalism and cited "democrat" as their primary political identity. When the views of self-declared "secular" and "relig...
By confounding terrorist networks and rogue states in a mission "to rid the world of evil,&q... more By confounding terrorist networks and rogue states in a mission "to rid the world of evil," the U.S. is making a grave strategic blunder that: (1) creates the very alliances against it that it most fears, (2) lets discretionary wars of choice against hostile states profoundly interfere with the war of necessity against transnational terrorist networks, (3) makes nuclear proliferation and the menace of nuclear war a selffulfilling prophecy, (4) relies overly on massive “top-down” force and fails to concentrate on effective countermeasures against terrorist “swarms,” (5) transforms the war on terror into an unsustainable ideological mission that wastes national treasure and lives and undermines faith in the political system, (6) substitutes a false and delusional "Domino Theory of Democracy vs. Terrorism" for an effective geopolitical strategy (much as happened with the "Domino Theory of Communism vs. Democracy" that inspired the Vietnam War), (7) pursues...
In the aftermath of 9/11, America has been haunted by one question: why do they hate us? This boo... more In the aftermath of 9/11, America has been haunted by one question: why do they hate us? This book is an attempt to answer that question, tracing the roots of the crisis back to American's involvement in the Middle East, and in particular Lebanon. Journalist Lawrence Pintak was a correspondent for CBS in Beirut in the 1980s, where he witnessed the birth of the current "terror": its tactics were honed there. In this book, he explores how America's flawed policy in the Lebanon transformed Muslim perceptions of the US - from impartial peacekeeper to hated enemy of the Lebanese Muslims. This book is aimed at anyone who wants a deeper understanding of how and why the relationship between America and the Middle East is now more volatile than ever. Pintak explores the links between those who carried out the terror war in Lebanon and the current wave of terror, examining in-depth the ongoing - but little publicized - role played by key figures behind the Beirut bombings. H...
The Global Journalist in the 21st Century
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Papers by Lawrence Pintak