Al Jazeera and the Arab awakening
Wadah Khanfar, Al Jazeera’s director general, talks to Listening Post about the network’s coverage of the revolutions.
The Arab revolutions, the emerging new media ecosystem and Al Jazeera in North America. On this week’s show we feature an interview with Al Jazeera’s director general, Wadah Khanfar.
Al Jazeera’s coverage of the Arab revolutions has, at times, prompted embattled leaders in the region to accuse the network of fuelling the protests. The man who has to respond to this criticism is Wadah Khanfar, the director general who is in charge of both the Arabic and English channels. Listening Post sat down with Khanfar in Washington recently. We spoke about the network’s coverage of the Arab revolutions, the new ecosystem developing between journalists and social media activists and the efforts to crack the American news market.
Quick hits from the world of Newsbytes: The Egyptian military reprimands journalists for reporting on the ousted leader Hosni Mubarak; Bahraini authorities continue their clampdown on journalists trying to cover the uprising there; Serbian state TV apologises for its role during the Kosovo war; Press TV is censured by Britain’s broadcasting regulator Ofcom for airing an interview with journalist Maziar Bahari; and privacy laws come under scrutiny in the UK as Twitter users flout a court ruling to name people who have sought injunctions to gag the media.
Our video of the week features one of the show’s favourites. Regulars to the show will recognise the fake news anchor Robert Foster, who produces satirical music videos. In this video, he takes on the battling narratives that emerged after Osama bin Laden’s assassination. We hope you enjoy the show.
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