A different kind of storytelling

"We are the voice of the powerless, and always will be," claims Samah El Shahat, presenter of the hit ‘People and Power' programme at English TV channel Al Jazeera. We are talking about competitors BBC and CNN, and El Shahat is asking why a 20-year war in Sudan has slipped unreported by some of the biggest media giants in the world. That was, at least, until ‘People and Power' cast light on the terrible saga.

"No one has reported it, and it has come out as this amazing film about the beggar rebels, and how it is that they are fighting the Khartoum government," she explains sincerely. "This [kind of reporting] is what Al Jazeera stands for."

The development economist, who has been a consultant to the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), the Canadian government, Foundation for International Training (FIT) and the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO), tells Arabian Business that her journey with Al Jazeera began unconventionally, but soon found the right direction.

"I didn't get this job because I knew anyone in the business; I got this job because they were willing to take a chance on someone who had no media background," she says. "They were happy to bring fresh blood into the industry and people with a certain expertise. They understood that we are bringing a message to the world."

El Shahat, who has also worked as an economic advisor on SMEs and innovation policy to the governments of Kenya, Egypt, Ghana, Pakistan and Mauritius, says that after 10 years of working as an economist she realised it was time to take on a different role.

"You get to a point where you start realising that there's a message that needs to get out - a message that is an alternative to mainstream or what we call neo-classic economics," she says.

What particularly came to her attention was the lack of a debate on economics in the world. She points out that history has been demystified on TV and so has science, but there is no one who wants to demystify economics, which is one of the fundamental things that determine how we lead our lives, what we wear, what we eat, and our relationships with several countries: "I thought I needed to get this message out and started thinking who, where, what, when, and how can I do this?"

Her previous work with the Canadian government, which gave her the chance to create a number of documentaries, proved to be her entry point into Al Jazeera English TV channel. "I wanted a channel that was rooted in its sovereign audience. I found that very fundamental, and I also wanted a channel that wanted to challenge the mainstream, because that's what my work has always been about - how to challenge the mainstream of economics," she says, adding: "A channel that gives alternative viewpoints and goes to under-reported countries; ones that are very important for people to know about. I thought that these two, my work and them, would be the perfect marriage."

El Shahat says she is finding her calling with the channel and continues to do so as she learns more about being a presenter. Her first work was a 15-minute film called ‘A Bitter Clash' that exposed the divide between rich and poor nations at the World Trade Organisation (WTO), over proposals to reduce industrial tariffs on a scale never seen before in the history of trade.

"There was talk about the fact that there was a deal on the table which the big countries like America and the EU were proposing to developing countries, particularly emerging economies, and it was a film that would have destroyed their economic foundations and I thought that had to come out," she says enthusiastically.

Recently, El Shahat finished filming a debate examining the changing balances of power and dynamics after the invasion of Iraq and the Israel conflict in Lebanon. The debate featured prominent Arab personalities including Dr Amr Hamzawy, Ibrahim Musawi from Hezbollah and Azzam Al Tamimi, director of the Institute of Islamic Political Thought in London.

"We are saying ‘what's going on in the region right now?'" she explains, adding: "In Beirut, you have all these Fath El Islam and the Lebanese army, there are issues there. Israel is bombing Hamas, Iraq is burning with sectarian divisions - the debate was what is going on? How are we going to get out of it?" Always working to challenge the mainstream, El Shahat brings her audience a film from Tunisia on human rights and political oppression, filmed undercover and in secret. Despite the channel being banned in the country, Al Jazeera sent filmakers to produce a film that looks at the increasing centralisation of power by president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

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