Andreu Claret, Executive Director of the Anna Lindh Foundation, Speaks Monday in Alexandria

In a study of perceptions on the Mediterranean's Northern and Southeastern shores, the Anna Lindh Foundation found that 66 percent of people polled on the Mediterranean's Southestern shore could not recall any media that changed their perception of Europe in a positive way. Furthermore, 79 percent of Europeans polled could not name a media source that changed their perception of the Muslim South in a positive way.

With such a dramatic divide in perceptions, many suggest more support for media freedom and work to build the capacity of journalists to report across cultures. These are both goals shared by the Anna Lindh Foundation, in alliance with collaborating organizations such as the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations. "Freedom is a prerequisite for reporting across cultures," Claret said on Monday at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina. "Without it, it's reporting across barriers."

Claret said he believes in the need to increase the capacity of journalists to report across cultures, which begins with gaining knowledge of the other; of complexity. "Without knowledge, there is no way to report across cultures." That search for knowledge also involves the difficult exercise of confronting one's own, personal tensions...tensions Claret said should be faced with humility. Claret offered a quotation from the British author Lawrence Durrell's tetralogy of novels, The Alexandria Quartet:

• 'There is no other. There is only oneself facing forever the problem of oneself's discovery.'