Sheikh Hamad gave Arab media a voice
The morning the death of Father Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani was announced, I was asked to write about Al Jazeera and the
The morning the death of Father Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani was announced, I was asked to write about Al Jazeera and the man whose vision brought it into being. May God have mercy on him. I found myself unsure where to start: with Sheikh Hamad, the man behind the idea and the project, or with Al Jazeera itself? In truth, the two are difficult to separate. Every project begins as an idea before the determination of those behind it turns it into reality. Al Jazeera was Sheikh Hamad’s brainchild. Through his resolve, persistence and courage in standing by his positions and decisions, it became what it is today: a force in the media world and a presence impossible to ignore. Let me roll the camera back 30 years or more. By a remarkable coincidence, that very morning the BBC announced the closure of its Arabic television service, less than two years after it had gone on air. The newsroom doors were closed to us, and suddenly we were looking for work again. For someone like me, accustomed to seeking work far from home, the situation itself was hardly unfamiliar, even if the news had come out of nowhere. Then a colleague arrived with word that a Qatari team in London was recruiting journalists for a television news channel it planned to launch in Qatar. The channel, he said, would be free to report the news and broadcast talk programmes according to their importance, just as leading broadcasters in the West did. Could such a thing really be possible in an Arab country? It was a sad question to have to ask. I had lived in Kuwait for 15 years and left after the Iraqi invasion. The Gulf held many memories for me. My children were born there. Hearing about the new Qatari project brought those memories flooding back, and I decided, as I had so often before, to follow where work might take me.
The BBC had closed its doors. Al Jazeera opened them. On June 1, 1996, our plane landed at Doha’s old airport. My colleague and friend, the late Ahmed Al-Shouli, was wearing a suit and tie. When the plane door opened and the hot air poured in, he turned to me and said: “If only I had travelled light, like you.” The newsroom was small. Beside it was an equally small studio, and behind them five small editing suites, a tape library, an office for the editor-in-chief and a larger one for the director-general and his staff. It was clear that the idea of launching the channel had been taking shape in the mind of the man behind it for some time. The foundations were already in place before he began bringing in the journalists, technicians and administrators who would enter that newsroom and put their skills and experience to work. It was equally clear that those who had designed and equipped the building had not imagined how quickly the channel would grow. Within a few years, the building would be too small and its facilities unable to keep pace with the demands of expansion. Yet it was a warm home for us all. The intimacy of the place only gave us greater energy and resolve as we set about building a channel that could rival those that had come before it and change the balance of media between the Global North and South. During the five months of trial broadcasting, the team grew in strength and cohesion by the day. Yet all of us wondered whether the freedom we had been promised was real. Those doubts gradually faded with every news bulletin we completed. We saw no interference in the content, the reports or the way stories were told. Before long, our frustration was of a different kind. We were producing bulletins that rivalled the BBC’s, and even surpassed them, but no audience could yet see them.
The BriefWire