Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Audible Jordanian Voices

What does Randa Habib, Ayman Safadi, Ahmad Humeid, and Marwan Muasher have in common ? You might say that they are all Jordanian citizens, and the first three are journalists while the fourth one is a former Jordanian government official. Perhaps so but that isn't the purpose of my lumping them together. For one reason or another they were selected to comment on the fifth anniversary of the spectacular September eleven attack on New York and Washington. I heard them speaking one at the time on national public radio station while driving from my work toward my house. I don't know who reached out to who, whether the media correspondents in the USA reached out to them or whether it is the other way around, but no matter who reached out to whom it is a good forward thinking and it is about time that we hear the voices of the Jordanians reaching all the way into the United States of America. Over the past ten years or so I have grown accustomed to listening to one and only voice of Rami Khoury, he was always the one and only Jordanian appearing on US media apparatus. He always does a good job explaining the situation whatever it might have been, I would even say that there were instances when he did an exemplary job responding to tough questioning by experienced veteran US Journalists, but again how much one person can do and no matter how different ideas he had, eventually the listeners begin predicting what exactly Rami is going to say about a given situation. That is why I was both surprised and exhilarated when I heard the voices of those other Jordanian presenting fresh views about terrorism, blogging, and Arab & US relationships. For the most part they all did a good job expressing their views & echoing the sentiments of the Jordanian streets pulse. The point I'm trying to make here is that the Jordanian must make a concerted effort to reach out to the US media, it is the only way to raise the awareness about Jordan and the people of Jordan, the US media loves to talk to local native people no matter how important or unimportant these people are. I'm not sure why the people of Jordan tend to want to stay away from the media lime lights, no body knows more about Jordan and the Jordanian people as much as the people living in Jordan do, why then don't they reach out to the US media and try to grant them interviews just like the ones mentioned above, and they don't have to wait for an occasion such as the fifth anniversary of September 11, they can and should do it all year around with and without occasion. They should express themselves in the most professional manner with the best way they know how in a transparent fashionable way. The US media loves to hear from them especially when Jordan is highly representative of epic center of both war and peace.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

good post dear..