I am in Dubai. At the Atlantis Hotel, to be precise, where top Arab media professionals are meeting over aquamarine and orange carpets, under sea-shell motif chandeliers at the invitation of the Dubai Press Club. The occasiona is the Ninth Arab Media Forum. It is in many ways a surreal experience: sky scrapers break through the arid landscape, the Gulf waters are placid, shrouded in what seems to be a constant layer of steam; the still night air always carries hints of sound that reminds one of Dubai's round-the-clock construction. Within the ballrooms where the conference is taking place, the theme is "Shifting Mediascape: Inspiring content, expanding reach." We kicked off this morning with three workshops and those who weren't too interested in the development of Kuwaiti media or the coverage of natural disasters found themselves in the crowds that filled the “Citizen Journalism: Challenging the unnamed source" session with me. Anwar el-Hawary, chief editor of Al Ahram Al Iqtisadi magazine, heated up the session by describing citizen journalism as a fad railroading the media industry—almost as a threat that needed to be pushed back. One Saudi journalist retorted that in fact the credibility of "traditional" media who were feeding their audience fabricated news was the threat to the profession that needed to be pushed back. Throughout the session, I could not help but be surprised that "traditional" meant state-controlled mass media, whereas "non-traditional" meant blogs and citizen journalism. Participants acted as though these divides have not, in the last few years, been constantly reworked within international journalism. "Traditional" print media has moved to the internet. Its main competitors are now bloggers and social networks. It only follows that to compete, “traditional” journalism must adapt the tools of the trade. This is not just about using Twitter, iPhones and other technical aspects of the revolution that has taken our business over. It is about reconceptualizing how we work, what formats we use--like my blogging now--and what sources we can incorporate into our coverage. The hope is that this is a more democratic and, consequently, more informative format. And those media organizations that are serious about embracing this brave new world must put time, effort, thought, and resources into developing sophisticated guidelines to incorporating user generated content, training citizen journalists, and adapting the trades of our profession. But in all of this we must never lose sight of the essential rules of high quality journalism should never be compromised: honesty, balance, research, credibility, and ethics. These are the hallmarks of our profession at its best and they should never be compromised. Herein lies the true nature of the challenge.
