CONTESTING PATRIOTISM AND GLOBAL JOURNALISM ETHICS IN ARAB JOURNALISM

Journalists' understanding of patriotism seems to be contextual, varies across time and depends on specific cultural and political situations. This paper investigates how global ethical journalism standards of impartiality and objectivity are challenged by patriotism among Arab journalists. It discusses two case studies: the coverage of Al-Jazeera news channel of the War on Gaza and the Egyptian media coverage of the aftermath of the World Cup qualifying football match between the Egyptian and Algerian national teams. Both cases show that patriotism, for many Arab journalists, is a virtue and not a breach of journalism ethics though journalists also believe that such patriotism could stifle criticism of the current political order and lack of press freedom.