The third annual Al Jazeera Forum is underway in Doha, Qatar. Around 300 journalists, producers, academics and bloggers are gathered for debate and discussion about the role and work of the media in the Middle East and beyond.
Alongside the conference is an exhibition highlighting the work – increasingly varied – of Al Jazeera Network. This includes initiatives on training young citizens from Middle East countries to produce material for news broadcasts. Al Jazeera Talk is an important move by the network, and confirms the Qatar-based broadcaster as a major centre for media excellence in the Middle East, putting something back into the community it serves.
Al Jazeera is also developing new ways of reaching audiences. The network is planning to launch an international newspaper. It will be in markets around the world, including China, according to sources at the Network.
In a provocative opening keynote adress, US author and media critic Seymour Hersh suggested that it is impossible for there to be non-partisan, unbiased coverage of news. Media outlets in the Middle East will inevitably report news in a different way to those in the west.
The first debate, hosted by Al Jazeera English reporter Rageh Omar, examined the role of “parachute” journalism, where reporters arrive from their homes on the other side of the world to cover stories and then fly out again. Veteran TV journalist Martin Bell said he had always been a parachute journalist and had no regrets. Whether someone is a local reporter or a parachuted-in journalist, there are only two allegiances that the journalist must have – one to the audience, the other to the truth.
Session Two: Politics, Media and Misinformation. Allister Sparks is the opening speaker. He’s reported on his home country, South Africa, for 55 years through the rise and fall of apartheid. He says that there is a real danger of the world slipping into a a time when people have – and want – less and less information. What are journalists there for – “we have to be the parents of society”. Sparks wonders whether journalists have lost touch with the ability to challenge authority.
Steve Clark, Director of News at Al Jazeera English says that Doha is now at the centre of a seismic shift in journalism in the Middle East. Al Jazeera English is, for the first time, starting to report from the South. As an example, Clark cites Al Jazeera English’s roll out of bureaux in Africa; the channel has eight and it will have ten by the end of 2007. It is working in the Democratic Republic of Congo where the world’s most under-reported war is on-going and where around 1,000 people are dying every day. The channel is also working in Zimbabwe and will be broadcasting what Clark describes as the “definitive” interview with President Mugabe in the next few days.
Haroon Siddiqui, Editor Emeritus of the Toronto Star says that it’s widely reported in the media in the West that the West is under siege from the Muslim World. Siddiqui disagrees – he says that the Muslim World is under seige by the West. He cites the number of deaths in Iraq – as many as 600,000 people, Siddiqui says – compared with those who died in the 9/11 outrage. The West is talking to the West, Siddiqui says, while the Middle East is talking to the Middle East and never the twain shall meet. Al Jazeera English has the opportunity to change this and to encourage cross-cultural discussion and change this narrative.
Session Three: Building Bridges. A heated debate for the first time today…four speakers on the stage, debating the rise of new channels working in Arabic, targeting audiences in the Middle East. The BBC’s Daniel Dodd explains that the Arabic-language TV service is to launch in November 2007, providing an international news service in Arabic and building on the success and heritage of the BBC’s Arabic radio service, established in 1938. Abdul Bari Atwan complains that new channels are interfering, both politically and culturally. Not only are the news channels in Arabic from countries outside the Middle East interfering, the music channels for the youth are damaging Arabic culture.
Ibrahim Helal, Deputy MD at Al Jazeera English, reminds the audience in an intervention from the floor that the new international channels such as France 24 and Russia Today TV have services in English targeting audiences in the West. It’s not the case, Helal says, that the new Arabic-language services have sprung up separately from services in other languages directed to other regions of the world.
We’ll be reporting more from the Al Jazeera Forum, continuing to explain the context and reporting the content, here on the AIB website.