GLOBAL JOURNALIST: Covering 9/11, Terry Jones and anti-Islam groups

Charles Davis, associate professor, Missouri School of Journalism: Saturday marked the ninth anniversary of 9/11. Much of the coverage in the United States and abroad focused on the controversy over the proposed mosque at ground zero and one pastor’s canceled plans to burn the Quran. Today we’ll take a look at 9/11 coverage from a global prism. Was the media frenzy surrounding the Quran burning and the ground zero mosque unwarranted, or were these legitimate news topics? How should news organizations nearly a decade after 9/11 talk about it? Is it too recent to call it history or to analyze it historically? How did media outlets around the world decide to cover 9/11? To discuss these questions, we have Manal Alafrangi, opinion page editor of Gulf News in Dubai; Barcin Yinanc, managing editor, Hurriyet Daily News, in Istanbul, Turkey; and Dr. M.Syafi’I Anwar, executive director, International Center for Islam and Pluralism, Jakarta, Indonesia. Manal, we were talking a little before the show that leading up to the 9/11 anniversary, there was real recognition in your newsroom that that date was coming and you had to do something a little different this year. Can you talk a bit about the context of the coverage?