Media has become a key soft power tool in the contemporary world — especially the Middle East, where Saudi Arabia in particular has been wielding this secret weapon against its regional rivals, Simon Kerr writes for the Financial Times. As an answer to Qatar’s controversial Al Jazeera Network, a Saudi publishing firm controlled by the royal family partnered with Bloomberg to produce news channel Bloomberg Alsharq — though its future is unclear in the wake of the Jamal Khashoggi murder. Iran International, a Farsi-language news channel based in London, is reportedly backed by Saudi investors. And MBC Group, which came under majority government ownership after the great MbS Purge of 2017, has launched video streaming service Shahid in an attempt to wrangle influence away from Netflix.

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