Moles in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Palestine

          Arab Reporters for

       Investigative Journalism

by Rania Habib on Tuesday, 01 September 2009

Investigative journalists are like the dead rat that was brought to the party. No one likes us.” A colorful, throwaway quote from Seymour Hersh, the world’s most famous investigative journalist, speaking at this year’s Arab Media Forum in Dubai. And in the Middle East he could well be right; the region is hardly revered for its freedom of expression.In fact, the 2008 Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders (RWB) shows that, in a report spanning 173 countries, most in this region ranked outside the top 100 in terms of press freedom. Iraq, Syria, Palestine and Iran are among those countries that recorded low press freedom scores, with most of them moving down the rankings from their 2007 press freedom scores. Only Lebanon, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates ranked in the top 100, with the first four moving up in comparison to the previous year.