Wild Wadah

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In the wake of Al Jazeera’s launch, France, Russia, America and the UK have all launched government-backed media outlets to target the Arab world.

Thirteen years after the Arab world's premiere news network launched, the number of newspapers and magazines in the region has soared, the internet has revolutionised how media is consumed, and no Arab nation is without its own satellite channel. But being Al Jazeera is no easier today than it was thirteen years ago, the network's director general Wadah Khanfar tells Arabian Business.

Much has been said over the last decade about the state of the Arab media, with buzzwords usually including "progress" and "improvement".

In Saudi Arabia, articles about women's rights and domestic abuse now regularly make the front page of the Kingdom's newspapers. Kuwait, seen by many as home to the region's most outspoken press, currently publishes more than 20 daily newspapers for its 2.7 million residents.

A new media law in the UAE that scraps prison sentences for journalists has been presented as an improvement over the old legislation, but it has been criticised for its ambiguous wording and steep fines that could be used to undermine free speech.

In another sign that media criticism remains a sensitive issue in the region, the director general of the Doha Centre for Media Freedom resigned in June, claiming that Qatari officials were trying to "suffocate" the organisation.

The head of Al Jazeera, the trailblazing news channel that has been credited with revolutionising the Arab media landscape when it began broadcasting in 1996, does not number among the optimists, but could perhaps be described as sitting on the fence. The environment in which its two news channels, Al Jazeera and Al Jazeera English, operates, has neither gotten worse since the Arabic operation hit the airwaves in 1996, nor has it improved, says director general Wadah Khanfar.

"We do still face obstacles. Unfortunately, issues related to governments and centres of power in the Middle East and internationally are not easily discussed nowadays, just as they weren't easily discussed in the past," he admits.

Obstacles may be understating it. Two weeks ago, two Al Jazeera producers were arrested in Afghanistan and detained by authorities without being told why.

Then, a few days after their release, and in what must have been one hectic week for the Al Jazeera HR department, the network's Yemen correspondent was severely beaten by an angry mob whilst covering the turmoil in the Sadaa region, where protestors are calling for independence from the country's central government.

Yemeni police officers were standing nearby, observing the event, but did not step in. The Sanaa government and the Sadaa secessionists may not agree on a lot of things, but they do share a dislike for Al Jazeera.

"They are not satisfied with the coverage of Al Jazeera. Each one of them would like Al Jazeera to adopt his political angle," Khanfar shrugs. "Media in the Arab world has become much more outspoken. Since 1996, when we started Al Jazeera, it was seen as breaking a lot of taboos.

"Now, it is much more often done and therefore people are used to some kind of reporting where we question centres of power, we question politicians, we speak about certain issues that were not really present in the media before."

But those changing attitudes have yet to filter through to the people in power.

"I must say that this new attitude, which is in my opinion very positive and people are used to it now, is not at all convincing governments to open up," Khanfar admits.

"It is actually putting governments in a position where they are trying more and more to silence voices and they are sometimes inventing new laws and regulations to work against the freedom of journalists."

Some governments' mistrust of the press is reflected by the ambiguous legal framework governing the region's media.

"I do feel that there is no dramatic change taking place, either forwards or backwards," he says. "Legal implications are very difficult now, actually, in many countries, where people can be sued by governments, or they could be put in jail for certain reasons that are related to freedom of expression."

Controversy, of course, has been a hallmark of Al Jazeera's since its inception. Most of the Arabic channel's original staff was hired from BBC's Arabic television service on the Orbit network, after the Saudi-owned company severed its ties with the British broadcaster following a controversial report on human rights in the Kingdom.

The Arabic channel has fallen foul of most Mid Eastern governments at some point in time, and its operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have been bombed by American forces. The US military insists that both incidents were "mistakes".

The Saudi government's dislike for the station has resulted in a virtual advertising boycott by regional and international companies, who are concerned that affiliating their brands with the broadcaster could jeopardise business with government-linked firms in the largest Arab economy.

The commercials the channel does air mostly feature Qatari companies like the state-owned Qatar Petroleum.

"I don't think that we have much more than a quarter of our budget now coming from advertising. We have other sources of revenue as well, like sharing content with other networks, selling pictures, and other issues," Khanfar says. "But in general, advertising for Al Jazeera is not the most important source of income. It does not cover most of our expenses."

Will it ever be profitable? The Al Jazeera Network, which includes subscription-based sports and documentary channels, might, he says. The news channels, probably not.

"As a TV station that is specialised in news, I don't think any channel in the region can become self-sufficient," he says.

Perhaps tellingly, virtually all other players to enter the Middle East television news market have been government-owned or funded. Since America launched Al Hurra in 2005, to counter an alleged anti-US bias at Al Jazeera, BBC Arabic, France 24 and Russia Today have all followed suit.

Its lack of friends is sometimes cited as proof that Al Jazeera's reporting is truly unbiased. However, observers claim that in recent years Al Jazeera Arabic's coverage of many issues, especially the Palestine conflict, has become more opinionated and emotive, possible to differentiate the station from Saudi-owned, US-leaning rival Al Arabiya, which launched in 2003.

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