France 24, the international news TV network launched from Paris in December 2006, launches four hours of Arabic-language TV on 2 April.
Joining established English- and French-language channels, France 24 Arabic will provide news and information from a French perspective across the Middle East.
The second Arab Broadcast Forum will take place in Abu Dhabi on 29 and 30 April 2007. With delegates expected from across the Middle East region, plus executives and journalists from media organisations with an interest in the Arabic-speaking region, this is an important event in the media calendar.
The delegate registration fee is US$1,000, but AIB Members benefit from a 25% discount on the delegate fee – a saving of US$250 per delegate.
Full details of this discount have been circulated to AIB Members. If you haven’t received this information, or if you would like to discuss your company becoming an AIB Member and receiving this and many other benefits (including market intelligence and tenders briefings, lobbying, networking, marketing support and more), e-mail us today – contactaib (@) aib.org.uk.
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.
Al Jazeera Network will hold its 3rd Annual Forum at the Sheraton Doha and Convention Resort on April 1 – 2, 2007 under the banner, Media and the Middle East: Beyond the Headlines.
Wadah Khanfar, Director General of the Al Jazeera Network stated: The Forum will provide colleagues from across the world the opportunity to debate and discuss key issues pertaining to journalism in hotspot areas and conflict regions – the forefront of which is the Middle East. Al Jazeeras experience over the last ten years in this regard has been exceptional.
Media experts, journalists, and researchers from across the world are attending and participating in this years forum. Leading investigative journalist Seymour Hersh will address the forum on Sunday April 1st at 9.00 am. The acclaimed academic Lawrence Lessig, along with other influential names such as Fahmy Howeidy, Martin Bell, Azmi Bishara, Abdulbari Atwan, James Zogby and others will also be speaking. Tayseer Allouni, Al Jazeeras correspondent in Spain, will have a special presence via satellite link contributing to a panel on war reporting.
Sessions in this years Forum will explore the growing influence of politics on media and vice versa, media credibility in times of conflict, the role of media in building bridges or walls, and case studies from the Middle East and Africa on the practical aspects of in-depth journalism.
In addition to a meaningful exchange of ideas, the Forum will also provide an opportunity to collaborate and network with peers and colleagues from the international media community.
As reported in RNW’s Weblog, the Uzbek General Prosecutors Office has opened criminal proceedings against a reporter working for German broadcaster Deutsche Welle in the Central Asian state, her lawyer said Monday. Uzbekistan has taken an increasingly tough line with foreign media since they reported eyewitness accounts of troops opening fire on a crowd in the town of Andizhan last year, killing hundreds of civilians.
Natalia Bushuyeva, an Uzbek citizen working for Deutsche Welle, is
accused of operating without a journalistic licence and tax evasion, her lawyer, Sukhrob Ismalov, told Reuters. He said she could face up to
three years in jail.
Following the Andizhan events, which led to European Union sanctions
against Uzbekistan and criticism from former ally Washington, Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty had its permission to operate in Uzbekistan
revoked. The BBC World Service, which has an Uzbek-language service,
also closed its Tashkent bureau, citing official harassment. Last year,
Uzbekistan’s foreign ministry cancelled the accreditation of another
Deutsche Welle reporter in Uzbekistan. Bushuyeva’s own accreditation
expired in 2005.
Harris Corporation, an international communications and information technology company, has introduced a suite of rich media management solutions optimized for public safety operations. The suite, which will be offered through the newly formed Harris Broadcast Government Solutions Unit, combines individual Harris products into total content delivery solutions – providing interoperability to public safety customers.
The Harris integrated solutions suite addresses requirements such as internal communications within local and state municipalities, traffic management and transit communications, emergency broadcasting, geospatial asset management and video surveillance.
The Harris suite of products also provides industry-leading broadcast solutions to support mission-critical video, audio and data transmission within and among city, county, state and Federal agencies and includes:
— Intraplex(R) NetXpress(TM) IP multiplexer, which features SNMP
management controls for complex audio and data video surveillance
requirements within land mobile radio networks (shipping now).
— Intraplex(R) SynchroCast3(TM) platform, which enables precise time
delay control for applications requiring the simulcast of mobile radio
systems (estimated to begin shipping spring 2007).
— The H-Class(TM) Content Delivery Platform, an integrated approach to
content management at the enterprise level, from ingest to distribution
over a variety of devices or networks; and the H-Class(TM) Digital
Asset Management tool, a core application within the H-Class(TM)
product family that uses metadata, an advanced thesaurus, and
innovative “deep-search” tools such as scene detection and speech
recognition to enable analysts to find exactly what they need in the
required resolution. H-Class(TM) Digital Asset Management now includes
a tool for connecting geospatial intelligence with rich media content
(estimated to begin shipping in July 2007 with Geospatial Media Asset
Management (GMAM) technology, which is a means of tying all media
assets to a geospatial location on a map).
— The AM/FM Radio Flyaway Radio Broadcast System – a completely portable
radio station in a small, ruggedized cargo container, providing
everything that is required to begin broadcasting a signal and
programming in the event of a disaster (shipping now).
— The NEO(R) SuiteView(TM) v.3 multiviewer – a tool for command center
and control room applications that allows a single monitor to act like
many, with the ability to adapt to router changes and display alarm
conditions (estimated to begin shipping spring 2007).
— InfoCaster(TM) digital signage solution, which allows for the creation
and display of information from different sources in a variety of
fields, banners, and crawls and is used to display vital public
information on a daily basis and/or during emergencies over a broadcast
network (shipping now).
“Providing a consolidated suite of products from our commercial Broadcast Communications Division product lines for public safety applications highlights the benefits of our ONE initiative,” said Tim Thorsteinson, president of the Harris Broadcast Communications Division.
“The ONE initiative showcases the company’s unique ability to provide a single choice for entire integrated workflow solutions.
“Government organizations, similar to commercial businesses, need to leverage the benefits of information technology to streamline their everyday operations. By integrating the entire Harris product portfolio, we enable improved organization workflows and enhanced communication to the public,” Thorsteinson continued.