He's also the Moroccan ambassador in Washington and prime mover for the forum. Benaissa gathered this eclectic group to verbally hammer at the problem of stereotypes in the media. Sometimes we hit the nail on the head. Sometimes we hit our thumbs. Indeed, Saudi Arabia continues to make it difficult for American and other Western journalists to enter the country, let alone report from it.
American journalists do tend to like linear stories that begin and end somewhere.
The discussion among the 40 of us around the table was more of an intellectual thrill ride. The pendulum swung wildly from practical journalism to political philosophy, but always passing through the meridian of Arab-Israeli relations. Maybe Americans do. There's little point left vilifying the Russians since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. Fidel Castro is an anachronistic and vestigial Communist.