public awareness and mobilising relief efforts to alleviate the suffering of those affected. This appreciation has led to a number of awards Al Jazeera has received from international humanitarian relief agencies. In 2005, for example, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refu- gees awarded Al Jazeera for the role it played through its outstanding and unique coverage of the refugee tragedy caused by the drought that swept through East and West Africa in 2004 and 2005. Many factors allowed Al Jazeera to be ahead of its competitors in the field coverage of humanitarian crises. One of the main reasons, is the uniqueness of its newsroom, which houses a diverse group of jour- nalists with vast knowledge, expertise, experience and cultural and po- litical backgrounds that enable them not just to analyse developments but also to predict events accurately. Thanks to its valuable human re- sources, the network has evolved from a mere news channel and on- line platforms into a distinct state of mind. For example, before Israel’s aggression on the Gaza Strip in 2014, the scenarios of the war had al- ready been predicted in the newsroom. Ayman Gaballah, Director of Al Jazeera Mubasher reveals, “The war against Gaza in 2014 was a good example of how accurately the network could predict events. Prior to the developments on the ground, we came up with different scenarios for the coverage and trained our journalists accordingly. When the war started, the newsroom was fully prepared for coverage and we had pre- dicted every step Israel had taken” (1) . The Fourth Phase: Revolutions, Setbacks and New Chal- lenges As Al Jazeera’s paradigm biased towards humans and their rights faced early challenges due to the nature of the Arab political environ- ment, it eventually confronted new challenges imposed by the devel- opments of the same environment. The Arab Spring revolutions that started at the end of 2010, to which Al Jazeera had contributed by lib- erating minds and TV screens from the shackles of dictatorship and ed- ucating peoples of their rights, brought opportunities as much as chal-
(1) Ayman Gaballah, personal interview, Doha, 20 December 2019
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