The Founding Story Lhaj Mohamed Nacik
Introduction On Friday, 1 November 1996, Al Jazeera channel launched its first broadcast from the Qatari capital of Doha, starting a new phase of Arab media history. It moved from the phase of the complete absence of “the other opinion”, to the phase of opening the door for Arab citizens to become involved in the media world and freely express their opinions after a long period of marginalisation. Part of Sheikh Hamad Bin Khal- ifa Al Thani’s reformist vision was the establishment of Al Jazeera and changing Qatar’s media sector; and he legislated their implementation as soon as he took power on 27 June 1995. For this reason, the answer to, “Why Al Jazeera?”, and studying and writing about the channel’s experience, cannot be separated from the framework of this vision. This chapter aims to contribute to the writings about Al Jazeera’s quarter-century history. This attempt falls under what is known as “con- temporary history”, the “recent past” or even the “hot writing of his- tory”, and includes the first four years of Al Jazeera’s history (1995- 1998), the period of “establishment and intensification”. In the first year included in this study, talk began about the idea of Al Jazeera, and preparations were made to bring this idea into existence. The 1998 American-British bombing of Iraq (known as Operation Desert Fox) had a significant impact on Al Jazeera’s path. The channel gained global recognition for its coverage of this four-day attack, mak- ing it a competitor on the global journalism stage. To better understand the full picture of Al Jazeera’s emergence in a regional and international context, and the variables which led to its prominence, it is necessary to mention the angles which those who write about the channel fail to mention as well as correct the mistakes made in previous writings. This
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