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ABF rehearsed many of the topics that have
become familiar in broadcast news
conferences in the west, such as
NewsXchange, including the embedding of
journalists with troops in Iraq, the role of so-
called citizen journalist, women in the media
and the influence owners and funders have
on the output of channels. Whilst these topics
have been dissected and discussed in detail
outside the region, ABF provided the first
platform for their exploration in open forum
within theMiddle East, involving practitioners
from both inside and outside the region.
The opening session debated the role of
locally-recruited news crews in covering the
conflict within Iraq where 144 journalists and
support staff have been killed since 2003.
Britain’s Sky News admitted that it rarely
strayed outside the relative safety of
Baghdad’s GreenZone, unless it was able to
be embedded with US Forces working
elsewhere. Tim Marshall, Foreign Affairs
Editor, said that Iraq is the most important of
stories, and defended the channel’s coverage
produced from its Green Zone bureau.
Others in the debate tended to agree that it
is not worth putting journalists’ lives in danger
to cover developments within Iraq, including
Al Arabiya’s former Baghdad bureau chief,
Hisham Bidawi. Iraq’s Foreign Minister,
HoshyarZebari, said that it had become clear
that the media were now being targeted by
militant extremists in Iraq. However, despite
the difficulties, local media in Iraq were now
starting to develop but needed the help of
other media organisations around the world.
Aidan White, General Secretary of the
International Federation of Journalists,
expressedhis horror at the number of journalist
deaths in Iraq. This was the worst conflict in
modern history in terms of media losses, White
said, and there was compelling evidence of
specific attacks on themedia.Journalists were
being taken out and shot and there was not
enough being done to protect them.
Dr Saad Al Bazzaz, Chairman of Iraq’s Al
Sharqiya TV, suggested that journalists in
Iraq are scared to report news. He went on
to say that many are targeted to become
what he described as intelligence agents
in order to get information – either for the
western forces within Iraq, or for local militia.
Taking a cue from theJanuary 2006 edition of
The Channel, a session called “Lost in
translation” examined the way in which new
channels are emerging to target the Arab
audience, as well as to explain the Arab world
to the rest of the planet. Deutsche Welle’s
Christoph Lanz announced that DW-TV is to
expand its Arabic-language TV output from
the end of 2006, up from 3 hours to 12hours a
day. According to Hosam Sokkari, head of
the BBC’s Arabic Service, the BBC is planning
At the beginning of June,
more than 200 delegates
gathered in the
breathtaking surroundings
of Abu Dhabi’s Emirates
Palace Hotel for the
inaugural Arab Broadcast
Forum.
The two-day event – which
the AIB supported – set
out to debate the issues
surrounding Arab
television, in particular
news channels.
Sponsored by AIB Platinum
Member Al Arabiya, and by
Abu Dhabi TV, the ABF was
the first pan-regional
conference focusing on the
broadcast news sector to
bring together the principal
players from within and,
importantly, from outside
the region.
to be the world’s online tri-platform Arabic-
language broadcaster, with radio, online and
TV from 2007 (although it is worth noting that
DW has been on all three platforms for some
years). Russia Today – the newly-launched
international TV service from Moscow – is to
start anArabic service within the coming year.
Many delegates from within the Middle East
questioned why so many broadcasters from
outside the region are trying to gain audiences
inArabic. What could these newchannels offer
that wasn’t already available?The newEnglish-
language service from theAlJazeera Network
–AlJazeera International – couldbe theMiddle
East’s answer to these new channels. It will,
delegates believed, be able to put across the
views of the Middle East to the rest of the
world. Steve Clark, director of news, said that
the channel’s news agendawould be different
from those of the BBC and CNN, but would
not simply reflect theMiddle East to the world.
Its regional bureaux in Kuala Lumpur, London
and Washington DC will cover what is
happening in the Asia Pacific region, Europe
and the Americas respectively – it will be a
global news service like no other, but it would
remain true to the original Al Jazeera ethos,
providing from its Doha newsroom extensive
coverage of the Middle East.
One of the most stimulating sessions
examined the development of new
technology and citizen journalism, involving
bloggers from Egypt and other parts of the
Middle East. It became clear during the
session that the blog has definitely emerged
as a tool that unites young people across
the Middle East and provides an alternative
to the mass media that remains, in many
countries in the region, heavily controlled
by governments. Blogs have emerged that
allow conversations about highly contentious
issues – such as the state control of media,
security and other topics – that governments
in the region would often rather not see
discussed openly. They have become, the
bloggers noted, mainstream among the
urban youth of Cairo, Jeddah and other cities
in the region, challenging authority in a way
that simply hasn’t been possible in the past.
The inaugural ABF proved that it is possible for
a dialogue betweenbroadcasters in theMiddle
East and the rest of the world to take place
and complements the work that Al Jazeera
has carried out with its own Forum in Doha (of
which there have been two to date – see
The
Channel
April 2006 for a report on this year’s
event). The second ABF is scheduled for Abu
Dhabi in March 2006. It would be good to see
greater involvement bymore senior executives
at CNN International, the BBC and other
broadcasters who cover the Middle East;
similarly it would be good if more Arabic-
language broadcasters from the region
became involved; and hopefully the
simultaneous translationwill be easier to follow.
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