My old favourite professional aphorism is this: a journalist’s duty is to betray. It neatly and bitterly encapsulates the moral, emotional and intellectual problems of reporting. But it’s not a tag to be repeated with pride, more of a dirty industrial secret.

Last night Mohamed Chebaro, of Al Arabiya and a veteran of international news reporting, came up with my new favourite line: a journalist’s loyalty is to their information. A major chord replaces a minor.

Mohamed was speaking at a debate I was fortunate enough to chair at City University last night titled Journalism and the Middle East: Free Speech or Propaganda? – an event made possible by a lady called Joan Tully.

On the panel too:

• City’s own Professor Stewart Purvis, former ITN CEO and Editor-in-Chief and on the inquiry into BBC coverage of the Middle East
• Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Independent columnist and writer
• Richard Gizbert, late of ABC News, now hosting a media show on Al Jazeera English

Students from City (some drawn from the region) and the Newhouse School at Syracuse University heard:

1. A strong endorsement of the positive role played by Israel’s media in Israeli society from the Arab media
2. An optimism about the role of journalism in opening up debate across the region
3. An appreciation of the security threats to press freedom
4. An awareness of the responsibility of the public to attend to reporting from the region

And much, much more besides…