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America’s Arabic-Language Media in the Middle East: A Conversation with Alberto M. Fernandez

By Alberto M. Fernandez & Mark Tooley on April 16, 2020

In lieu of Providence’s regular social hour talk, Editor Mark Tooley spoke via Skype with Amb. Alberto M. Fernandez, president of Middle East Broadcasting Networks Inc. (MBN). Fernandez spoke about his work at MBN, which is the US government-funded Arabic-language media organization that includes Alhurra. In particular, Tooley asked him how the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting his organization’s current work, how the virus is affecting the Middle East, and conspiracy theories about the US in the region due to the pandemic.

Alberto M. Fernandez is a former US diplomat and vice president of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

Mark Tooley is IRD’s president and editor of IRD’s foreign policy and national security journal, Providence.

Prior to joining the IRD in 1994, Mark worked eight years for the Central Intelligence Agency. He is a graduate of Georgetown University and is a native of Arlington, Virginia.

He is the author of Taking Back The United Methodist Church, published in 2008; Methodism and Politics in the 20th Century, published in 2012; and The Peace That Almost Was: The Forgotten Story of the 1861 Washington Peace Conference and the Final Attempt to Avert the Civil War, published in 2015.

His articles about the political witness of America’s churches have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The American Spectator, First Things, Patheos, World, Christianity Today, The Weekly Standard, National Review Online, Washington Examiner, The Review of Faith and International Affairs, Touchstone, The Chicago Tribune, The New York Post, and elsewhere.