ISLAMABAD, Oct 31: Laila al-Shaikhli had just completed an interview of President General Pervez Musharraf which would be aired that evening.

The tall Iraqi-born primetime news anchorperson for Abu Dhabi Television had, during the past three weeks that she has been here, also interviewed the Interior Minister, Tehrik-i-Insaf chairman, as well as Dawn’s resident editor in Islamabad, apart from other analysts.

Never before has Pakistan been shown and covered so extensively on Arab television channels as in the past few weeks. An unprecedented number of media teams from Arab television stations, both state and privately owned, are among the international media personnel who have swarmed the capital since September 11.

Some of them, like Yemen, Sudan and Jordan television stations, are in Pakistan for the first time. Many are trying to find permanent correspondents to be based here for their stations.

Although Abu Dhabi Television, which broadcasts 24 hours over satellite, already has a permanent correspondent based in Islamabad, like many other stations it had sent a reinforcement team of 20 personnel to cover events here after September 11.

This team includes two anchorpersons for its daily four primetime news broadcasts at 1600, 1900, 2200 and 0001 hours, Pakistan time. Laila is one of the anchorpersons.

She happened to be in America during the attack on New York and covered that event for Abu Dhabi Television before coming here.

Laila’s career in the media industry began when she was living in the United States after having left Iraq as a child. She worked for the Arab Network of America (ANA) before moving to London to join BBC’s World Service in Arabic. Then she was with NBC for four years before ending up in Abu Dhabi, where she now works and lives with her husband.

She still has relatives in Iraq, which she last visited in 1988.

“Intense competition amongst the growing number of satellite channels is what that has driven all these television stations to converge on Pakistan to try and provide the best coverage, each one trying to get the scoop,” said Laila.

“But,” she continued, “this has also had negative results in the form of one news channel contradicting another, and thus creating confusion.”

“For instance, one station announced that the Taliban had killed 20 people from the Northern Alliance but another station said that this was not true.”

“The war in Afghanistan has turned out to be a media war,” she said. “Very often, there is a political background behind the news coverage.”

“In the past, television stations would not broadcast any news unless it was absolutely confirmed. Now since every station wants to be the first one out with the story, they broadcast the news first and worry about whether the information is correct or not later on,” lamented Laila.

Her team will be replaced by another relief team from Abu Dhabi Television arriving in a few days’ time. But Laila hopes to come back to visit as a tourist.

“Just as we Arabs are often stereotyped, we also have our stereotypes of other cultures. I am glad that I had the opportunity to correct these stereotypes after seeing for myself how wonderful, beautiful and advanced the culture and the people in Pakistan are,” said Laila.