Al Jazeera Tells its Story: In-Depth Studies

meeting with Sheikh Hamad bin Jasim to notify them that the idea had changed to launching a satellite news channel similar to BBC Arabic . Jafar says the original idea came from Adnan al-Sharif, and al-Sharif confirms this, even though he says the idea initially saw opposition from some people who claimed that a channel of this type would not succeed. According to Mohammed Jasim Al-Ali, a former director of Al Jazeera, many Arab professionals were not convinced of the idea of a news channel at the time, including three candidates for Project Man- ager who were not persuaded. After the Emir’s agreement, implementation was launched by ask- ing Adnan al-Sharif to conduct a research study on the project. He turned to the experts for this study, and was aided by Laila Fanous, Head of Media Affairs for Qatar’s Embassy in London, who was a former col- league at Qatar Radio . Al-Sharif did not save a copy of the study, but he remembers that “it included full details of the news and montage rooms, and the number of employees who would work there, including a number of producers” (1) . Jafar says that al-Sharif had a significant role in establishing Al Jazeera’s newsroom, “Brother Adnan al-Sharif had a hand in the newsroom as a result of his BBC experience” (2) . Sheikh Hamad bin Thamer Al Thani, Chairman of Al Jazeera Me- dia Network’s board, says that after the dissolution of Qatar’s Media and Culture Ministry and the lifting of local media oversight, (3) the Emir summoned him for a meeting in which they discussed a news channel addressing Arab affairs. Adnan al-Sharif was selected as director for the upcoming network. The meeting was held on the second floor of what was then the Media and Culture building. Jamil Azar, Sami Haddad and others were in attendance (4) . A project management committee was established with Sheikh Hamad bin Thamer Al Thani as the president,

(1) Adnan al-Sharif, personal interview, Doha, 21 October 2020.

(2) Hussein Jafar, personal interview, Doha, 20 January 2021.

(3) See Law Number Five (5), 1998, which decreed the dissolution of the Media and Culture Ministry and distribution of its specialties: https://cutt.ly/zj5BIaX.

(4) From an interview with Sheikh Hamad bin Thamer Al Thani in the film , I See, I Hear, I Speak , produced by Majed Abdulhadi and broadcast on Al Jazeera’s tenth anniversary, (No-

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