BOB GARFIELD: This week, Mahmoud Abbas was elected the new leader of the Palestinian Authority. His victory capped a heated campaign season that played itself out in a variety of Palestinian and pan-Arab media outlets. While the world watched closely, the Palestinians engaged, through the press, in a process of self-criticism and debate about their options. Shibley Telhami followed the media throughout the campaign. He's the Anwar Sadat professor for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland and author of the forthcoming book Reflections of Hearts and Minds: Media, Opinion and Identity in the Arab World. Professor Telhami, welcome to the show.

SHIBLEY TELHAMI: My pleasure.

BOB GARFIELD: You've done a lot of polling of Arabs about their media diets. What kind of media were average Palestinians paying attention to during this campaign season?

SHIBLEY TELHAMI: There are a lot of Palestinian print media, and those are certainly read by a lot of people - not just elites. They tend to really be relatively stale and safe. More often than not, they reflect the broad views of the elites. In general, Palestinians continue to watch the Arab satellite media, and Al Jazeera is still the most popular by far, like in the rest of the Arab world. But more attention was paid, certainly, as the election got nearer and during election day to the Palestinian television station which covered issues related to the election almost all the time, including pictures live from various places --guests who were coming as observers to the Palestinian areas, as well as Palestinian analysts who had exit poll results and could talk about them. Clearly, that mattered. Although, by and large, there was an implicit kind of tone favoring Mahmoud Abbas.

BOB GARFIELD: You said that the Palestinians papers are read but not necessarily voraciously read. Why don't they have more of an impact?

SHIBLEY TELHAMI: By and large, I think, the papers have limited resources. They really are almost late in updating the story. They borrow a lot of stories from the outside world. They don't have a lot of active reporters beyond the Palestinian areas. So, in general, the news that they get on television is not only more colorful, but it's more up to date, there's more diversity, it's more important for a lot of people to watch.

BOB GARFIELD: From your perspective, do Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya, for example, really understand the subtleties of life inside of the occupied territories, or are they let's just say a little on the polemical side?

SHIBLEY TELHAMI: If you look at the satellite Arab media and you compare it with Arab television 15 years ago, which was mostly monopolized by governments, really advocating essentially a government point of view in every single Arab state, they're far better than before -- even despite their limitations. What you see now is far more diversity, far more real coverage from the ground, openness in the discourse, far more opposing views than the Arab world has ever witnessed. Now, obviously what happens in those kind of situations where you have a marketplace, you have a market dynamic that takes over, and that market dynamic ultimately also leads to a little more sensationalism on some issues. But, at the same time, there is actually more coverage, more real coverage, more information than Arabs have ever been exposed to.

BOB GARFIELD: Let's talk for a moment about how Abbas used the media to reach out to the various constituencies. His predecessor, Yasir Arafat, was famous for delivering one message in English -- mainly for Western consumption -- and an entirely different message in Arabic for domestic consumption. Mahmoud Abbas didn't do exactly that, did he?

SHIBLEY TELHAMI: In general, I think he had a unified message, and what he sought to do was differentiate, at least, his position on issues in a way that balanced the interests of his own constituency, his need for a continued working relationship with Israel, and support from the Bush administration. The way he did that was that he assumed that the red line in his relationship with Israel and with the Bush administration was the issue of violence, and so he took a very clear position against it. On the other hand, he clearly took positions on final settlement issue -- particularly the refugee issues -- that were tough - that were very much at home with the vast majority of the Palestinians and, in fact, very much at home with the position that Arafat had articulated, assuming that it wouldn't affect so much the relationship with Israel, because in the end, those issues are going to have to be negotiated. So taking a, a negotiating position in and of itself is not a threat.

BOB GARFIELD: Abbas obviously faces enormous challenges as he takes over. There's corruption, there's poverty, hopelessness. The way that the debate is framed, particularly on the Pan-Arabic satellite channels, is it actually impossible for him to make any headway?

SHIBLEY TELHAMI: I don't think he's going to be able to use the media in a way that is going to affect his strategy or affect the way people are going to see him. He might be able to do that in the short term, by virtue of getting a lot of support from around the world. Remember that when Palestinians are turning on television, they also see Jordanian television and Egyptian television and Lebanese television, and most of the governments in the Arab world, they want to see him succeed -- they're rooting for him -- because it helps them, in a way, project that there is a process, and also they really don't want to see Hamas win. They, they clearly want the PLO hierarchy to be able to withstand the assault by Hamas. And so, in that sense, the government media around is going to be giving him relatively good press. The U.S., in the short term, will be rooting for him. But in the end, I think people are going to judge him by what happens on the ground.

BOB GARFIELD: All right. Well, thank you so much.

SHIBLEY TELHAMI: Sure. Take care.

BOB GARFIELD: Shibley Telhami is the Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland. His next book will be titled Reflections of Hearts and Minds: Media, Opinion and Identity in the Arab World.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Coming up, collateral damage from the predations of a paid-off pundit, and the many meanings of Michael Moore.

BOB GARFIELD: This is On the Media, from NPR.