{"id":9544,"date":"2012-05-09T08:19:01","date_gmt":"2012-05-09T15:19:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=9544"},"modified":"2012-05-09T08:19:01","modified_gmt":"2012-05-09T15:19:01","slug":"bahrain-and-media-repression","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=9544","title":{"rendered":"Bahrain and media repression"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>No Media Reform in Bahrain<\/strong><br \/>\n6 May, 2012 &#8211; Marc Owen Jones blog<\/p>\n<p>Back in October Bahrain announced that it would be opening a brand new media city, complete with new buildings, technological stuff, and an attractive investment climate. The purpose, \u2018to entice companies operating in the media arena\u2018. Like middle-aged men who buy expensive sport cars, one can\u2019t help thinking that this move was one of overcompensation \u2013 a poor attempt to mask inadequacies through a grandiose and expensive gesture. Indeed, the idea of building a \u2018media city\u2019 in a country deemed by Reporters Without Borders  to be an \u2018enemy of the internet\u2019 is so ironic that it\u2019s almost self-satirizing. A bit like the fake Ed Husain account, where does reality end and the joke begin?<\/p>\n<p>What this media city represents is an attempt to deflect criticisms of Bahrain\u2019s media industry through marketing Bahrain as a beacon of media modernity. The reality of course is much different, for despite these technological developments, Bahrain\u2019s media industry seems to be regressing. This  is highlighted by the appointment of Sameera Rajab as Minister of State for Information Affairs, a move that illustrates the regime\u2019s habit of rewarding people for loyalty instead of competence. The fact that the post was created especially for Sameera Rajab is particularly galling, not least because the title has no correlation to the reality of what Sameera does. As the Prime Minister stated, (ok the parody account of the Prime Minister), \u2018Miss Information\u2019 is perhaps a more appropriate name.   <a href=\"http:\/\/marcowenjones.wordpress.com\/2012\/05\/06\/no-media-reform-in-bahrain\/#comment-197\" target=\"_blank\">&#8230;more<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"igit_tsb_button\" style=\"float: left; margin-right: 10px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.crookedbough.com%2F%3Fp%3D9544&amp;text=Bahrain+and+media+repression&amp;count=horizontal&amp;via=\" style=\"\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>No Media Reform in Bahrain 6 May, 2012 &#8211; Marc Owen Jones blog Back in October Bahrain announced that it would be opening a brand new media city, complete with new buildings, technological stuff, and an attractive investment climate. The purpose, \u2018to entice companies operating in the media arena\u2018. Like middle-aged men who buy expensive <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=9544#more-'\" class=\"more-link\">more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247],"tags":[977],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9544"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9544"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9544\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9545,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9544\/revisions\/9545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}