I recently saw a list prepared by the Arthur Carter Institute of Journalism at New York University that included the names of top 100 media personalities in America over the last 100 years. I noticed famous journalist Christiane Amanpour's name was at the top of the list, which made me curious to find out about her journalistic achievements especially that I found her name in another list prepared by the New York Academy of Film for the ten most influential journalists in the world.
Christiane Amanpour is the international correspondent for CNN and has a well-known interview program with her name on the channel. She is also a correspondent for international affairs on ABC News. She began her career nearly three decades ago and her first major journalistic assignment with CNN was covering the Gulf War in 1990.
Since then, she has bravely covered the world's hottest events around such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Somalia, Rwanda, the Balkans and others. She has held interviews with many world leaders and has won most prestigious media awards, including the Academy Award, nine Emmy News and Documentary Awards, four George Foster Peabody Awards, George Polk Awards and others.
This was a brief summary of some of her journalistic achievements. In fact, my curiosity did not stop there, but I went through a number of other names included in the Arthur Carter Institute List, including famous names such as Donald Barlet, who won two Pulitzer prizes, two awards from the "National Magazines", and six "George Pollack" awards.
I will not dwell on the names of other journalists mentioned in the list and their achievements. Certainly, this article will not have enough space for that. But what comes to my mind here is to see a reliable list of the names of the 100 Saudi journalists with their achievements. Just years or decades in media positions, or piles of paper and ink brings no significance or influence to the media industry.
There are a number of names that jumped directly to my mind not due to their fame but because they have had real media achievements of value that can be seen; for example, Abdulrahman Al-Rashed and Fahad Al-Orabi Al-Harthy.
I hope that an accredited body will prepare a list along the lines of the Arthur Carter Institute of Journalism for the 100 best American journalists. It should provide us with a list of the top 100 contemporary and late Saudi journalists, and their achievements according to certain reliable criteria without compliments or favoritism.
SOURCE : SAUDIGAZETTE
