BROOKE GLADSTONE: Ever since the bombing of the US embassy in Beirut in 1983, Lebanon has been etched in the minds of Americans as a dangerous mix of factions and infighting, with Christians, Druze, Sunni and Shia, Syria, Hezbollah, and opposition forces, and no one in the majority, it's hard for Western media to untangle the threads. Lebanon has its own long tradition of relatively free press, and we wondered how the recent protests and counter protests are playing there. Michael Young is opinion editor for the Daily Star, an English language newspaper based in Beirut, and covering the Middle East. He joins us now. Michael, welcome to the show.

MICHAEL YOUNG: Thank you.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: So we've been watching the massive demonstrations in Beirut, and some media here are covering them as part of a larger trend in the Middle East, implying that Lebanon was emboldened by the elections in Iraq. So how's the narrative playing out there?

MICHAEL YOUNG: Well, not really quite in the same way. I think it's being played mostly as a local story, an indigenous Lebanese story. It's not really being linked to events in the region. But the different television stations and radio stations are playing it up depending on their political outlook.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: So, some are giving more sympathetic coverage to the pro-Syrian Hezbollah organized protests, and others to the anti-Syrian protests.

MICHAEL YOUNG: Exactly. In other words, if you want to look at two particular stations, the station owned by the former prime minister - the late Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri which is called the Future Station, has obviously been interviewing opposition politicians, showing the demonstrations, etc. Of course, on the other side, if you want, you have the Hezbollah television station, Al Manna, playing up the Hezbollah demonstrations, actually acting as a mobilizer. But, there is variety, even in those stations owned by specific politicians. The freedom of information in the market - it's quite extensive - essentially imposes on everybody to be much more open towards news, to try to shape it less to fit their particular agenda.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: On the other hand, the director of the Institute for Professional Journalists, based in Beirut, said recently that the Lebanese media lacked ethics and professionalism. You reported her words in your own newspaper, the Daily Star. Do you agree with her?

MICHAEL YOUNG: I would tend to say that, in Lebanese press, where you do see a problem is in the independence of the media. You do not see often hard-hitting feature stories that, you know, in a sense will take on the state or that will take on a particularly sensitive subject. But that doesn't mean that you don't have a lot of very interesting stuff out there, often very critical, very open. It's a mixed bag. I would not say there is a lack of professionalism. I would say that our approach to journalism is rather different than in the West, but it can often be just as compelling in terms of getting the information across.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: How is the approach different?

MICHAEL YOUNG: Well, today of course is not a good time to judge, because obviously all the taboos have been broken with the Syrians apparently leaving Lebanon, so that it's much more easier to call a spade a spade. But in the past, to give you a very concrete example, you would not say "the intervention of the Syrian intelligence services in such and such an event." They would use, in Arabic at least, the more ambiguous "regional intervention in such and such an event" - very clear that they were referring to the Syrians. So, I mean, it's a work in progress, and I think that the latest events in Lebanon have liberated the press from the language of the past.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: But as you mentioned, Hariri owned a television station, and he was also prime minister. In fact, his assassination has led to all of this new attention on Lebanon, and I just wonder whether some of those old journalistic problems have played into the coverage at all.

MICHAEL YOUNG: There is no doubt that Hariri's television station today is sort of the rallying point of the opposition when it comes to the audio visual media. There is no denying this. But let's look at the two options. Either the station can play that role - and it's not an objective role - but the second option is one that basically - if Hariri's station is not playing that role, well no one else will be playing that role either. So that in fact the opposition will have no say. Let me give you again perhaps a more concrete example. Two years ago, we had a bi-election in one of the mountain regions of Lebanon, and at the time, a particular television stationed called the NTV was instrumental in bringing out the opposition vote. The candidate supported by the government, in fact, lost that election. And the response of the pro-Government crowd was to effectively close down that opposition station - and it still remains closed. So what I'm essentially trying to say is that you're absolutely right. These are not necessarily always objective stations. But the fact that they are broadcasting allows a certain portion of the population to have its views voiced, so that in a sense, you have a paradox in Lebanon. You have a lot of often subjective stations, but this breadth of point of views allows everybody to have his say in the system.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Michael Young, thank you very much.

MICHAEL YOUNG: Thank you.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Michael Young is the opinion editor for the Daily Star in Beirut, Lebanon.

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