A little more on journalism

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please note: this post does not intend to criticize the government, the emir, or Kuwaiti culture. This post includes only observations made directly from published newspapers freely available in Kuwait and interviews with Kuwaiti journalists.
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In reading the local Gulf newspapers, it is clear that local journalism is still developing its own distinctive voice. Sometimes an article will mention a topic in a headline that has already efficiently summarized the content of the article. For example, an article with the headine "38 Individuals take pre-marriage test" reports that 38 individuals took a pre-marriage test and were happy with the process.

The daily paper I prefer to read, Al Watan, often includes some very entertaining sentences at many linguistic levels. Here is an example from the opinion page: Islam is particularly concerned with alcohol and its strict prohibition stems from the fact that not only does it affect the mind, but also it influences the spirit of its consumers in a sense that in both cases alcohol consumers have no power and control over their behavior as well as their utterances.

However, in addition to the linguistic interest of these periodicals, there is also an interesting process of content selection. By general consent, one does not criticize the ruling family, although the constitution only specifies that one cannot criticize the emir. Of course, this is unless they shoot each other, and then the papers will report that as they did last week when a nephew shot his uncle outside a diwaniyya. This caution was repeated in many conversations throughout the Gulf. A journalist we spoke to said, "There is no censorship. We are free to write about anything we want. We just don't criticize our advertisers because the paper needs them." So, no criticism of the ruling family, the emir, or the advertisers. As a result, the Kuwaiti parliament is eagerly covered by Kuwaiti journalists. For example, "In the meantime, the parliament approved amendments to the foreigners law, whereby the offspring of Kuwaiti women married to non-Kuwaitis will be exempted from residency fees. These women have been also entitled to sponsor their non-Kuwaiti husbands, while their children will be entitled to permanent residency provided the woman was not naturalized by marriage in accordance with article 8 of Citizenship Law."

Yesterday, we met with four journalists from four of the local papers. We were very excited about the prospect of speaking with them, and at breakfast we planned what questions we might expect from them and how we might respond. When we arrived and sat down, they asked two questions: What do you think of women's situations in Kuwait? and How have the financial difficulties of the economy affect the Fulbright program? Then silence fell, and there was a long, awkward pause. Finally, one of the journalists asked, "Do do you have any questions for us?"

I asked, "Could you talk about the educational path that lead you to journalism?"

One young man responded, "Well, I have a degree in economics, but this job was available, and I kind of like it."

Another slightly older man said, "I have 15 years experience in hospitality management, but there was no work in that field for me, so I am doing this." Clearly the papers must have kept back their trained journalists for real stories.

So, even though the job of journalist does not seem to be at the top of the Best Employment list, they are quite creative. Here are some of my favorite headlines from the past few days.

"Young Kuwaitis Seen Exercising Tuesday morning"
"Healthy Citizens Warned Against Pretending to Be Handicapped"
"Encouraging Female Ex-Patriates to Breastfeed Citizens"