DOES LEBANON HAVE AN INDEPENDENT MEDIA LANDSCAPE?
July 10, 2024Is Lebanon’s media truly independent?
English Script:
Nadia Al Zoubi: What is your assessment of the press in the Arab world? Is the press free, or has it become the mouthpiece of its financier?
Paula Yaacoubian: Listen, I can’t tell you much about the Arab press, but I can tell you about the Lebanese press. There is no doubt that there are still some good ones, but today the financier in Lebanon…Never in the history of the country have they been this powerful and this octopus has come to a point where they can buy everything, buy the air, buy the press, buy everything. The advertising field in Lebanon, especially after there was no advertising and there was no longer funding for television, the news has become almost like an advertisement agency. This field is suffering a lot, and this is sad and painful.
Nadia Al Zoubi: There are businessmen who run media organizations from A to Z using mobile phones.
Paula Yaacoubian: There are businessmen who run the judiciary, agencies, ministries, leaderships, and televisions.
