Media watch policy

Editor Cornelis Hulsman developed between 1997 and 2010 a media watch policy and criticized articles and reports in both the West and the Arab world that were obviously one-sided or provided distorted information of any kind. He believed that such one-sided reports tended to contribute to polarization between different cultures and thus should be publicly criticized. It is obvious that such critique needs much investigative reporting for which funds had been lacking.

Media watch reports were made if:

1) An article in the media did not provide accurate reporting on a specific issue within the subjects we covered, regardless in what media an article or report was published, Western, Arab printed or broadcasted, or whether it was a press release.
2) We had been able to obtain sufficient information, preferably as close as possible to the news source, to prepare a report and relevant specialists had been consulted, certainly those who are both a specialist on the topic. We could have produced more reports with more funding for investigative reporting.

Method:

The purpose of the Media Watch Policy was to encourage reporting that provides understanding in the proper context of the issue concerned, not to embarrass writers, editors, media or organizations, or other concerned people. Hulsman worked prior to 2007 with an editorial board and from 2007 onwards with the board of the Center for Arab-West Understanding NGO. He would leave it to the board to inform the concerned people first of a critique on a specific article before this was made public. This process turned out to be very time-consuming and thus was not possible for all critiques. Whenever the concerned organization or people had been informed, they had the right to respond before the critique was published. The intention was that their response and arguments would be considered by the board and would either lead to a revision of the critique or would be published without revision. It frequently happened that concerned people or organizations chose not to respond and thus it was decided that if no response had been received within the period of one week or sometimes longer the critique could be published without the response of the concerned author, editor, publication, or organization.

Whenever a critique had been published, the critiqued organization or people had the right to respond. That response would be published, with or without a comment of the editorial board.

Purpose of media critique:

Encourage reporting that provides understanding in the proper context of the issue concerned. A dialogue with concerned authors and media may show why differences in reporting exist, difficulties in accessing information, different interpretations, and sources presenting stories in different ways to different receivers of that information or other reasons. No bad intention was assumed unless no other explanation seemed to be possible.