Al Jazeera Media Network has appointed Dima Khatib as Managing Director of AJ+.
Dima joined Al Jazeera in 1997 as a broadcast journalist in Al Jazeera’s Doha newsroom where she became a news producer. She participated in managing the coverage of the channel during the Iraq War which brought Al Jazeera international recognition. She also helped launch the first Al Jazeera show dedicated to women in the region, while also setting up bureaus in China and Venezuela for the network. In 18 years, Dima has reported from over thirty countries, interviewing presidents and people from all walks of life. In 2012, Dima was classified as the most connected woman on Twitter in the Middle East.
Commenting on her new role as MD, Dima said:
“I’m very honoured to step into the role of Managing Director of AJ+. It is an exciting and enriching challenge for me to work on pushing this amazing project forward. We’re experiencing an era of rapid change in the news industry, where digital platforms require a new form of communication from within the digital world. Through AJ+, Al Jazeera has pioneered a world of digital storytelling that encourages its young audience to engage in conversations, build communities and challenge everything they see and hear”.
“It is time for AJ+ to be taken to the next level of success. I feel fortunate to be part of that”.
AJ+ was launched as a digital-only news platform from Al Jazeera in 2014, highlighting the stories that matter to people through innovative and informative ways. The goal of AJ+ is to meet its audience in every digital space by creating custom content for online social communities, which include Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and the AJ+ mobile app.
According to Facebook data, since the end of June 2015, videos from AJ+ have been viewed more than 430 million times. In June AJ+ became the ninth biggest video publisher on the social network, according to video sharing data aggregated by NewsWhip, which lists AJ+ as second only to “Nowthis” among news publishers. And growth seems to be accelerating as AJ+ videos have made it into the feeds of 153 million Facebook users, and more than 24 million people engaged with posts from AJ+.