This is the first post of few I’m going to write about The 2nd Aljazeera Forum - 2006.

Now that I’m back from Doha after attending The 2nd Aljazeera Forum, and after swallowing all the sweet and the bitter of such a huge gathering, I can share with you some of my views and conclusion.

Three things that I would like to talk about mainly:

1. Aljazeera and the Arab media
2. The Forum
3. Blogging in Arabia

First of all, the Arab media:

Honestly, first impression I got about the Arab media was a disappointing one. The first person I meet was a Chief Editor of an Arabian newspaper. We arrived at the same flight, but we never met before, so we only came to know each other while we were leaving the airport together when we were escorted by some nice people from Aljazeera PR to our limousine.

Later that day at the hotel, we sat and talk. When I explained what I do as blogger, his first response was that he “heard” about blogging, but never actually known much of what it is all about and why is it related to the forum which we are going to attend.

Surprisingly, he didn’t know that he was supposed to be one of the panelist in the same panel which I’m also joining (The New Media: Bloggers and Participatory Journalism). In fact he got worried when he heard the confirmation that he is one of the panelists of the blogging panel. He declared that he will ask the coordinators to change his participation to some other panel, since he does not know anything about blogging.

The good thing is that Aljazeera coordinators refused to replace him and explained to him that it was intended that he should be there to reflect what, how and when, why, etc… our Arab traditional media will interact with the ‘citizen media.’

Later that day, I was lucky to meet more influential and very well know journalist and Chief Editors of Newsweek (Arabic version), Al Hayat (London), Alwasat (Bahrain) and Al Safir (Lebanon) and many more.

As expected, some “heard” about blogging, other didn’t, but no one actually ever had the chance to dig more and see where it stands, and how important blogging is outside the boundaries of the Arab world and Middle East. I also didn’t miss the chance to criticize them for ignoring the fact of presence of Arab bloggers and how relatively it is powerful and important for the Arab media to make use of it, also how they should develop their own ‘electronic media‘ to match and catch the new standards of ‘Main Stream Media‘ and the “New Media” (also was called, citizen media, future media and alternative media; throughout the forum). I was not surprised to find that they all agreed that they are not utilizing the million readers a month they receive on their Internet version of the newspapers (one of chief editors mentioned that they get more than 1/4 million reader a month).

The press conference:

Waddah Khanfar and Nigel Parsons gave welcome messages respectively to the attendees and answered some of the tough questions.

Khanfar announced some of the new projects that Aljazeera will launch. Among these are the re-launch of aljazeera.net, launch of Aljazeera Research Centre, Launch of Aljazeera channel translated to Urdu and few more things.

So, as you can guess, the most interesting thing to me was the re-launch of http://aljazeera.net/. He mentioned that the re-launch is needed to incorporate a new format that will present the editorial material as well blogging and podcasting. Now, this is good news. Aljazeera seems have done their homework and came up with the conclusion that they can develop their main stream using the edge media technology as well incorporating the blog phenomena in their philosophy of work. I was extremely happy to hear this from Aljazeera, and it didn’t take me more than 30 min later to find out and meet the team who are all behind it. They are expected to re-launch aljazeera.net with the launch of Aljazeera International (English version of Aljazeera Arabic. Will talk about later).

Having discussed this move with Aljazeera staff, I also came to know that they are actually in touch with so many pro’s in this field, as well they are open for new ideas and would love to work together with well known projects (not going to name them here so that they will not be tagged as pro-Aljazeera since the West sees Aljazeera as the voice of terrorist, like we all Arab and Muslims are tagged too, nothing new). In fact, I was personally excited to accept their invitation for corporation in future projects related to blogging and blogsphere, locally and internationally. We discussed few projects, but please allow me not to mention them now as they are still in very early stages.

Anyway, back to Aljazeera International.

For good reason, blogging and Aljazeera International were some of the most important topics that kept the guests and their hosts busy discussing throughout the forum. In fact, I guess Aljazeera International subject is now resting in peace after everyone returned back home, but not Blogging.
Starting from the first day of the forum and until today morning, everyday there was something on Aljazeera Forum and TV channel about blogging and bloggers. Several interviews and reports were broadcast. More will be coming soon. In fact I was told after recording with them that a 45 minutes documentary program will be broadcast soon. Among the guests, Shaden, Ethan and I. They also told me that more interviews will take place at Egypt and Bahrain.

But, back to Aljazeera International, again. Well, this subject was one of the most controversial ones in the forum. The reason is that Aljazeera Int’l manager failed to answer basic questions, which are “Why, when and how?”

Why do we (Arab world) need to have the first English Channel broadcasting internationally? Of course the question might sound silly or even negativity skeptical. But those who asked the question has very strong point of view. Which is that the ‘West‘ does not actually see or care enough to see their ‘Local News Channels’, so what would motivate them to see Aljazeera? Plus, Aljazeera having very bad reputation in the ‘West‘, it sounds as a waste of money, lot of money, to invest for nothing.

Also, Aljazeera Int’l failed to answer, when? They don’t know when exactly it will launch. It seems that they have some technical issue in getting license to get through cable/satellite networks through out the ‘West‘ (roamers said), as well their offices around the world are still not ‘dust free‘ to start installing equipments, etc.. as Nigel Parsons - Managing Director of Aljazeera Int’l said.

Last but not least was the question of, how? This was and still is one of the most difficult questions. How will Aljazeera Int’l present the Arab and Muslim world? Will they look at it from Arab point of view and just put that in ‘English’ words and outreach the ‘West’ so that they can understand Arab culture and values? Or is it going to put some makeup on our region stories in a way that would be acceptable to the ‘West’.

On the other hand, who will reach the other? Is it the taking ‘East’ to ‘West’ or bringing ‘West’ to ‘East’?

And the terminology; this is one of the tough questions. What will they name Suicide Bombers? Terrorist? What will they call the ‘invasion and occupation forces’; ‘freedom fighters’? How about ‘National Resistance’; will they call them ‘Insurgents’? etc… You know how terminology is so different from the western media, and while the Arab media has fallen in the trap of terminology many times, yet, it still preserved most of its terminology.

In short, Aljazeera Int’l had a nightmare at the evening of that infamous press conference. It also showed some conflicts already floating over the relationship between Aljazeera Arabic and Aljazeera Int’l.

The Forum:

Gathering 180 journalists and more than 300 participants is not an easy job. The forum was one of the most organized forums I ever attended. The entire event toke place at one of the biggest theater halls at Sheraton Doha.

From the moment we stepped out of the plane until we boarded back on the way home; all the time, someone from Aljazeera was around to make sure that all the guests are getting all what they needed in no time. The service was excellent, and the accommodations were luxuries.

The only two problems I noticed throughout the forum were the sound system, which was not functioning as expect most of the time, and the time per session, which was always short in terms of time given for panelist to say all what they need to say, as well answer the ton of questions asked. In the evaluation form given to us at the end of the forum, I suggested that next year they make it in workshops format so that more discussions can take place, and maybe come out with more results.

Over all, on a scale from poor to excellent, I give them ‘very good.’

Later, will take a little about some of the Panels and some of the outcomes.