The Future of 24-Hour News
New Directions, New Challenges
Edited By Stephen Cushion and Richard Sambrook
Chapter 8: The View from the Middle East: Al Jazeera
Extract
← 92 | 93 →CHAPTER EIGHT
The View from the Middle East: Al Jazeera
IBRAHIM HELAL, DIRECTOR OF NEWS, AL JAZEERA
As the world is debating the relevance of 24-hour news channels, we in the Middle East are totally engrossed in creating more news platforms. Unfortunately, we are doing so for the wrong reasons.
As a TV journalist for the last 25 years, I should be happy to see more chances to work and more competition, but actually I am not optimistic at all with the current professional scene. Since the 9/11 attacks, all news organisations are living in the age of immediate reporting with all its accompanying professional problems. No one has managed to cope with or recover from the symptoms of this transition. I have many concerns about the current health of TV news around the world.
But we in the Middle East have been suffering from an even more problematic transition. Since the region became more central to the “global war against terrorism,” more money and political influence have been pumped into the media scene. After Al-Qaeda and similar organisations managed to use media tools to recruit and circulate their messages, the governments and businessmen in the region decided to follow suit and use media. Al Jazeera was the only one created before 9/11 and managed to dominate the scene, which increased reasons to create more media platforms. Saudi Arabia, Saudi businessmen, UAE, and Kuwait are all...
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