Opinion: Middle East TV monitors the American vote as close to home
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This just in from The Times’ Rafei Raed in Beirut:
The U.S. election is huge news across the Middle East today and tonight. They even provided live coverage of the Obamas voting. Here’s part of Raed’s report:
On Al-Jazeera TV, a correspondent is talking live from Arizona on how Republicans are preparing for the voting to start. A few minutes later, at the studio of the Qatar-based Arab satellite news channel, an American analyst is commenting on the results of the newest polls. For Arab media, the U.S. presidential election is far from being simply another item of foreign news. At least today, the election is being covered with almost the same intensity as on any U.S. news channel. Starting this morning, the big satellite channels throughout the Middle East started extensive coverage of the election with commentators from around the world discussing the effect of the vote on the Middle East, charts and maps explaining where each of the two candidates are favored and several correspondents describing live the atmosphere of the voting day from various U.S. locales such as Virginia and Florida.
For the complete report, go here to our Babylon & Beyond blog.
-- Andrew Malcolm
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