Al Jazeera Network has announced the opening of a Commercial Sales office in Kuala Lumpur. The new office will be launched in Q1 2009 to focus on serving the Asia Pacific market. The office and existing commercial division will help advertisers and business partners in the region capitalize on Al Jazeera’s global reach and international brand.
“This is an important stepping stone for our commercial efforts in the region as we begin to extend our global brand. While we remain focused on bringing ground-breaking news to the world, we are venturing and expanding into new commercial areas. The Al Jazeera family of channels which now includes Al Jazeera Satellite Channel, Al Jazeera English, six Sports Channels and Al Jazeera Documentary gives extensive market reach and advertising value for our partners” said Dr. Al-Horr. “The aim of the Commercial Office in Kuala Lumpur will be to get closer to our Asia Pacific partners beginning with introductory offers for new sponsors and potential partners for 2009 onwards.”
Al Jazeera English launched in 2006, has been making steady progress in the region with developments this year in Hong Kong, Singapore, Philippines, Taiwan, Vietnam, building on top of existing reach and strong market presence in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Macau and free-to-air Asia-wide footprint on AsiaSat3. Al Jazeera English is currently available to over 130 million households worldwide, including 25 million across Asia Pacific.
The AIB Diner Pensant and Media Excellence Awards
take place on 12 November and the event is fully booked!
We have a standby list for last minute reservations. To
add your name to the list, send an e-mail to register (@) aib.org.uk.
210 guests
from broadcasters, vendors, and news organisations worldwide include senior
representatives of CBC, SABC, France 24, BBC, Vizrt, Russia Today TV, INSI, Al Jazeera Network, Bloomberg TV, BBC World
Service, Strix TV, BSkyB, Deutsche Welle, Link Research, Swedish Television,
RFE/RL, WDR, Radio Netherlands Worldwide, VRT, VT Communications, 3FM,
Pharos, TV2, BTV Balkan News.
Last minute tickets are priced at £295 plus VAT
for the evening, or £225 plus UK VAT for AIB members. The ticket price includes the champagne reception, three-course meal
(catered by Jamie Oliver’sFifteen restaurant) and wines.
Make sure you don’t miss out
on this highlight of the year in international broadcasting by getting on to our
standby list today. We’ll let you know as soon as a place becomes available.
At a star-studded evening in London tonight (12 November), the AIB revealed the winners of this year’s International Media Excellence Awards – the “AIBs”.
Well over 200 journalists, editors, producers and executives from more than 20 countries joined the celebration of excellence at the central London venue, LSO St Luke’s.
Hosted by France 24’s Mark Owen, the Awards recognised work in television, radio and online. The results of the Awards – evaluated by an international panel of judges from the US, UK, Germany, Australia, Egypt, Ghana, France and the Netherlands – brought prizes to BBC World Service; Tinderbox Production; SABC; France 24; Al Jazeera; Link Research; Strix TV; Sveriges Radio; SVT; and NPO 3FM.
“Since we launched these Awards four years ago, we’ve looked at more than 1,000 productions,” says Simon Spanswick, AIB Chief Executive. “This year we had the largest-ever number of entries and the quality and range of material submitted was higher than ever. This presented a range of challenges to the judges and led to some extremely close calls.”
You can see the winners’ brochure here (it is around 3MB so we recommend right-clicking and saving to your computer).
The 2009 AIB Media Excellence Awards will be launched in March and the Awards event will take place on Wednesday 11 November 2009.
For the first time, journalists across the globe will have free access to BBC journalist training guides on the use of language previously only available to BBC reporters.
The guides, which have been developed into six languages by BBC World Service and BBC College of Journalism, focus on language; in particular its usage and style when reporting and writing for TV, radio and online.
The language used in each guide has been fine-tuned over many years by BBC journalists reporting in Arabic, Chinese, Farsi, French, Russian and Urdu and are available to journalists and the public alike on BBC websites bbcarabic.com, bbcchinese.com, bbcpersian.com, bbcrussian.com, bbcafrique.com and bbcurdu.com.
The guides are based on knowledge and experience built up by more than 75 years of BBC World Service broadcasting. They are based on the ethics which underpin the BBC values which include accuracy, impartiality, objectivity, fairness and editorial independence.
The guides give a range of advice on the use of language including the use of impartial language, identifying loaded words, advising on how to unify new terminology and pronunciation. Where relevant the guides instruct on nuances of language when broadcasting to two or more countries with the same language.
Editor of BBC College of Journalism, Kevin Marsh, said: “This is the colleges most exciting project to date. The guides draw on the rich experience and expertise of BBC journalists built up over many years, and we are delighted to be able to share this knowledge, in six languages, with journalists across the world. The guides underline how, in the end, journalism is all about language. In order to discuss the values of journalism, one must first understand the role language plays in expressing those values.”
Al Jazeera Satellite Network has announced the launch of the Public Liberties and Human Rights Desk, which will be headed by Sami Al Haj, the Al Jazeera cameraman who was recently released from Guantanamo Bay after six and a half years of detention.
The primary focus of the Desk will be to promote respect for human rights and public liberties by monitoring, documenting, broadcasting and raising awareness for these key issues in the world as a whole and in the Arab region in particular. The Desk will work closely with Al Jazeera’s news division and establish a specialized database on human rights and public liberties issues.
“This important Al Jazeera initiative will promote respect for public liberties and highlight the need for basic human rights for all individuals throughout the Middle East and the rest of the world. Broadcasting and promoting those values will create an incentive for their respect and fulfilment among all those reached by Al Jazeera’s media network,” said Wadah Khanfar, Director General of Al Jazeera Network. “The Al Jazeera Public Liberties and Human Rights Desk is a groundbreaking project that builds on Al Jazeera’s tradition of reporting events and stories that too often are not told. We’re very pleased to have Sami Al Haj lead this initiative for advancing public liberties and human rights that follows Al Jazeera’s tradition of expanding the boundaries of journalism.”
Sami Al Haj, the newly appointed Head of the Al Jazeera Public Liberties and Human Rights Desk added, “I am truly honored to be part of this historic project. My years at Guantanamo made me appreciate in a very profound manner how basic human rights could be violated and the fundamental importance of public liberties. These experiences are etched deeply into my soul. I firmly believe that through the dedication of the Al Jazeera and the newly established desk, we can promote the fundamental values of human rights and create an incentive for others. Al Jazeera will have an unmatched platform to promote these ideas and to foster a dialogue on the media’s role in advancing human rights.”
Day to day tasks will include the monitoring and documenting of achievements and violations in the field of human rights, keeping track of all regional and international developments pertaining to the systematization of human rights and public liberties protection, documenting different experiences, producing reports and media programming on human rights and public liberties as well as working on capacity building in the field of human rights and public liberties.
Additionally, the Public Liberties and Human Rights Desk will contribute to research and studies in the field of human rights and public liberties.
The initiative will be formally launched on 1 November 2008, as Al Jazeera celebrates its the 12th anniversary.
