of sanctions against Al Jazeera’s bureaus and correspondents extended to Morocco in October 2000, the Palestinian Authority in March 2001, Bahrain in May 2002, Jordan once again in August 2002, and Kuwait once again in November 2002. Most of the complaints invariably in- volved offending officials, including presidents, princes, and other VIPs affiliated with the royal families. On rare occasions, the pretext for clo- sure took the form of “broadcasting news containing false information and biased analyses aimed at defaming reputations”, as seen when Su- danese authorities closed the bureau in Khartoum in December 2003 (1) . In 2004, Al Jazeera issued a booklet, that former Director General, Wadah Khanfar, considered a guide to professional conduct, ethics and beliefs that would outline its journalistic standards (2) . In an initiative to provide further institutional mechanisms to ensure compliance with professional standards, Khanfar said the issuing of the guide was linked to the establishment of the Al Jazeera Media Training and Development Centre, now known as Al Jazeera Media Institute. Mostafa Souag, Al Jazeera’s Acting Director General, believes there were three reasons behind the issuing of the guide: “first, the maturity of Al Jazeera’s ex- perience; second, the need to benefit from the practices of other inter- national institutions in this regard; third, the feeling that the level Al Jazeera had reached in 2004 required the drafting of its own rules” (3) . This document, known as the “Professional Code of Conduct”, was the fruit of four months of work. It served as a constitution for Al Jazeera’s journalists and was meant to put an end to any suspicions that might affect their performance or reputation as professionals. The guide has eight chapters and it starts by addressing a number of values such as “credibility and objectivity”, to help ensure false or misleading information is never broadcast. In an introduction to the four sub-head- ings it contains, this chapter starts with a recommendation to journalists to observe 15 rules of conduct. The first of which is to “verify materi- als” coming to Al Jazeera from various sources and “avoid inadvertent
(1) See: “Our Story: Historic Milestones”, Al Jazeera Net , Al Jazeera Media Network.
(2) Zayani and Sahraoui, The Culture of Al Jazeera , p. 151.
(3) Mostefa Souag, personal interview, Doha, November 2020.
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