The Editorial Board has met on December 1 and December 21 and decided to ask Dr. Arne Fjeldstad, Dr. Mary Massoud and Dr. Amr Assad Khalil to join the Editorial Board. The board also discussed the membership of Dr. Mike Shelley and Ms. Dale Gavlak, who have both left Egypt, and decided to ask them to remain on the board since many discussions about texts take place via e-mail correspondence. Dr. Fjeldstad, Dr. Massoud and Dr. Khalil have accepted the invitation and Dr. Shelley and Ms. Gavlak have agreed to remain on the board. Dr. Christiaan van Nispen s.j. was elected as chairman.
The board also looked at the criteria for providing a critique of articles we believe are not accurate or not meeting basic ethical standards. Please find below the text the board would like to present to you.
Misperceptions can be caused by:
- Conspiracy theories or raising suspicions without providing evidence,
- Exaggerations or omissions that skew facts,
- Taking information out of context,
- Unchallenged assertions, the use of unreliable “sources” and rushing to conclusions unjustified by the facts.
The above-mentioned distortions can be intentional or unintentional. Both types of distortion are dangerous. They mislead both decision-makers and the general public and can even incite groups against each other. When these occur they will be most often the result of not being well-informed, not having done proper research. We need to be careful in discerning malicious intent, since false accusations of malicious intent can cause unnecessary further polarization. If we are convinced distortions are intentional we can speak of lies and manipulation.
Public criticism will make media and authors aware that their information is biased, either intentionally or unintentionally. If it is unintentional, public criticism will reduce the number of biased publications. If it is intentional, public criticism will expose its aim and influence such publications to be more conscientious with their articles, to reduce tensions between cultures.
You are invited to respond to this text and help us fine-tune the criteria for critical analysis of publications.
