By Jamil Azar, Aljazeera Network
06/06/2008 :: Much has been written about Aljazeera since it was launched nearly twelve years ago. Within that period the whole Middle East and Arab Africa has been through dramatic and calamitous developments with drastic consequences for the peoples of the region most prominently is the effect of 9/11 and the consequential war on terror. The Palestinian problem is a festering wound for the past sixty years and during the past 12 since the beginning of Aljazeera epochal launch the Palestinians are no nearer to their dream of a state of their own than they were before despite the Oslo agreement, the Road map of the International Quartet and the two peace agreements between Israel on the one hand and Egypt and Jordan on the other. Iraq, many would agree is a case beyond description for the war on that country cannot be justified through any loophole in international law, precedence or ruling. The 2003 invasion of Iraq wasn't a new war but a continuation of the one started in 1991 which continued with another ingredient of the most brutal sanctions regime imposed on any nation under the aegis of the United Nations. Lebanon is being destabilized by all sorts of happenings, war, assassinations, rivalry for regional influence and so on. Iran can be added to the list and so is Afghanistan and Pakistan where manifestations of civil wars can be discerned at any bend and with every explosion, suicide bombings and attacks as was the murder of Benazir Bhutto. Turkey's problem with the PKK, the Kurdish movement which wants self determination meaning independence. In Africa the Darfur crisis is raging and the Nevasha peace agreement between Khartoum and the South of Sudan has been put to the test several times although it is still holding so far. Algeria with its war on the extremists and its dispute with Morocco over the Western Sahara . Somalia is another country which lost all features of a state despite all the attempts to pretend otherwise. Obviously there are other symptoms of malaise and turmoil in the region on the political, social and economic fronts. The food crisis, the water crisis, the crisis of democracy and human rights, minorities, ethnic, religious and cultural, poverty and disease.
Into this scene and wild and horrific landscape Aljazeera came into being and has been operating since the first day of November 1996. It was a phenomenon, with no precedent in modern Arab history, distinguished and distinctive when compared, not only with Arab state propaganda tools, but with the most famous channels of the long established international media. We set out to make a difference for the audience long dependent on non-Arab sources of information. To achieve this, we made our motto, The Opinion and the Other Opinion, a commitment and a contract with the audience. In tribal and totalitarian political regimes there was the one and only opinion and that is of the regime and tribal leader. To give a platform for the Other opinion by a medium of news and information in an Arab state, and a relatively small one in area and number of population, was going to be revolutionary. Our commitment to the motto impacted on all fronts : political and social, regional and international. The Channel proved to be a hit among Arab viewers in Arab countries and abroad. Our sponsor the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani, has been the visionary behind the idea and has been supportive materially and morally and would continue to do so, he said, as long as we were doing our job professionally. From the first week we had protests from regimes intolerant of the other as we started to broadcast the news in a way unknown before in Arab media. Even in terms of style and vocabulary Aljazeera seemed to talk differently. Honorific titles have disappeared when mentioning or addressing a president, prime minister or any other official. We referred to them by their job title: there was no his majesty, Excellency, eminence etc. Opposition figures and even Israeli politicians, analysts and journalists have been given equal time and opportunity to put their side of the story. Discussing taboo issues was the peak of daring and broke the mold of state oppression and hold on the sources of information. We stuck to journalistic principles of accuracy, balance and fairness which became an integral part of our editorial standards equal to any other international media. We applied these to our hourly news bulletins, and our discussion programmes which have been informative, penetrating and comprehensive whether about local, regional or international issues. With credibility established within a short time these programmes became a platform for public participation with live phone-ins with no censorship or even delay mechanism. Despite the risk involved in this exercise it earned us an added title of Parliament On Air.
This is a unique position in Arab media, impacting on public opinion with added acquired role of a pan Arab channel for the public and not speaking for any state or government. Under the same principles we discussed emotive issues from Palestine, Iraq, Sudan, Somalia and Western Sahara, to the rights of women and minority groups and even to the dictatorial and authoritative practices of Arab regimes and the near absence of human rights in the majority of cases. Having felt the heat of that impact, some encountered by launching satellite channels with programmes similar to ours but lacking the wide margin of freedom in which Aljazeera operates.
We, as a network, have embarked on a new project for what we call AljazeEra because of the realization of the new media landscape created by the new platforms coming into play in delivering information. With multi-platforms (TV, Internet, Mobile phones, and other devices like iPods, cd players and the like) and with our multi-channels (Arabic, English, Sports, Mubasher, Documentary and Aljazeera.net in both Arabic and English, Training and Development Centre and Centre for Research and Studies) we want to be able to speak to audiences and to interact with people by delivering content, anywhere, any time and anything, almost anything, and to connect with these audiences who are enabled to click to e-bank, e-pay, e-shop,e-mail, e-communicate, e-gove, e-advertise, e-publish, e-distribute, e-learn and the list is lengthening all the time as we share, play, view, update, invite, compare, tag, consult, message, conference, socialize and so on for every aspect of daily living. We need to adapt to the new changes not only to preserve our role as a leading media network in the Middle East but also to provide a service as comprehensively relevant as possible to the needs of our customers.
Thank you for listening