Saleh Eldin Hafiz, secretary general of The Federation of Arab Journalists, and managing editor of Egypt's Al Ahram newspaper, claimed that media is run by a "tribal logic".
"Media in the Arab world is under the control of the government and we are aware that this can reach a very dangerous point," he said.
"Every Arab country is saying that it is more free than the others but that is not true. The freedom of media is very limited and maybe it does not exist."
Hafiz was speaking at the Arab Media Forum 2007 in Dubai, during a session on developing media professionals.
He continued: "We have to provide the right environment for freedom of expression. We can't develop, we can't create, we can only destroy, without this first point.
"If we can't liberate newspapers and media, we can't speak about developing people and developing organisations.
In the same session, Rafic Khoury, editor-in-chief of Lebanon's Al Anwar newspaper, said demanded to see journalists liberated from government pressure.
"We can't speak about media freedom without political freedom," he said.
"I hope we can liberate media from control of owners and governments. Social, financial and political freedom is needed to develop the media.
"We write reports to please others and not to inform readers. If there is no political freedom, how can there be a successful media?"
Both speakers agreed that these pressures were holding back the advancement of the Middle East's media industry.
"Up to now, unfortunately, most of the media work is amateur. Amateur would have been sufficient 50 years ago. It can't work anymore," said Hafiz.
He added that too much attention was placed on developing technology, and not enough on developing people.
"The most important element is not the computer. It is the person who works on that machine. We should be really interested in training and teaching those youth who are in media," he said.
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