Hello (to the Gogglers) and I was on al-Jazeera (to the regular readers)
I’m saying hello to all the people finding me on google. I didn’t expect that. But anyway Hi. I thought it was a good show. The al-Jazeera people were very nice and fair to both sides I thought, equally tough on everybody too.
I’m very worried about that reformer/opposition guy who called in from Yemen, Dr. al-Mutawakel. If things follow the normal pattern, the regime will target him or his family now for sure.
If anyone wants to email, it is: ccbklyn@aol.com This is a listing of all my articles (click here)but it doesn’t show all the places they were published in Yemen in English and Arabic, or all the articles that mention me. I still have to fill that in. I’ll try to find all the Arabic versions and put them on the list soon. Please feel free to leave a comment here on any of the posts. You dont need to put your name or email, and if you do, the name shows but email doesnt show to anyone but me. I haven’t slept in four days, I was so nervous, so thats all I’ll say now. But thanks for coming by.
For my regular readers: I was on al-Jazeera, talking about of course Yemen. This is an analysis of the show: Jane Novak Slams President Saleh’s Regime on al-Jazeera (thats the title of the article.)
The Yemeni governmental media was trashing me so badly in response to my articles that our friend the Yemeni Editor Abdulkairm al-Khaiwani wrote an article defending me entitled Stop Attacking the American Journalist, so I expect the attacks on me will get worse now that I was on the TV in Arabic.
Thank goodness for my Cotillion sister, Charmaine Yoest, of Reasoned Audacity, who it turns out is on TV alot. And her husband has a post about TV spots. A very lovely person, Charmain gave me several tips, encouragement, and even was nice enough to have a long chat with me on the phone about how to handle the spot.
I did well I think with:
a) answer the question you wish they asked, not the one they did.
b) have four talking points and focus on that only- dont try to explain every detail, just get your main points across. (My points were the Yemeni regime is anti-democratic, dysfunctional, corrupt and targets its own citizens.)
c) nail the opening. The hardest part is your first five words. I did have an opening memorized but the host said to me: well you’re one of the most controversial guests we’ve had, since a Yemeni newspaper published an announcement of your appearance and we’ve recieved a flood of email condemning your appearence on al-Jazeera and denouncing you as anti-Arab, so welcome Miss Novak. And then he asked me a question. So my opening was, Its very strange that anyone would call me anti-Arab, since I spend so much of my time advocating for the human rights and civil rights of Arab people. (The Yemenis are Arabs last time I checked. So the regime tried to get me pulled from the show.)
And I have no clue what I said after that or on the rest of the show except I mentioned al-Khaiwani and the fact that he is still targeted and getting death threats. All of this was translated into my earpiece over the people talking in Arabic, so it was a little confusing.
The host was very balanced and really was fair. Also when Faris the government weasel from the Yemen Observer started attacking me personally, (I think he said I’m a bad writer and a paid operative), the host objected and told him to stick to talking about my ideas and not me personally. Faris couldn’t stop attacking me, its not in his contract, so the host switched to someone else and didnt bring him back on.
I did not do well with
c) look at the camera all the time (I couldnt see the show, only hear it, I was in some little room with an earpiece and a microphone.)
d) keep talking untill somebody stops you.
But all in all considering it was my first time, it went well in that I didnt stutter or freeze, and I got my points across.
Oh and then I listened to the last third of the show which was an interview with the Yemeni Foreign Minister and he invited me to Yemen. errrr, no thanks.
So if its a insta-lanche when you get a lot of hits from a mention on Instapundit, and a Jawa-slide when Rusty gives you a plug, what can we call this? an Alja-flood? a jeera-lanche? But its nice people are stopping by. I forgot about their millions of viewers while I was on. (It was live. It was an hour program. I think I got about five or six chances to talk. ) I was really only thinking about explaining correctly the situation of the people in Yemen and that regime.
I have a ton of email to answer (it went very well according to many Yemenis and I was a little riled up, I know because I was talking with my hands) but Im so delerious (I only slept two hours last night.) So the first and maybe only thing for right now is: email the show and thank the host.
Update: I looked very calm and confident according to reports, and they introduced Faris as the press secretary for the president. So that looks even MORE stupid.
