rapidly. However, after I appeared on the screen and said, ‘Welcome to the first broadcast of Al Jazeera channel in Qatar’, I returned, glory be to God, to my natural state and finished the broadcast. As soon as I finished and exited the studio, the entire room erupted in applause in the presence of leadership. It was a successful launch, thank God” (1) . On that same day, and before the broadcast began, Emir Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani met with officials from the channel in Moham- med Jasim Al-Ali’s office, who was the Director at the time. Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jasim Al Thani was also in attendance. Af- ter the Emir praised the trial broadcast tapes that were being sent to him, he addressed them with the following message: “You were with Qatar Television, a local channel seen in Qatar and some nearby Gulf areas, and could say what you liked; and people were forced to believe you because they had no means of distinguishing truth from falsehood. However, the world has now changed with the presence of satellites and computers which offer on-demand viewing of anything, anywhere, anytime. My advice to you is, do not hide the truth from people because they will know if you are telling the truth or not, so speak the truth to gain their trust and they will watch you” (2) . After the first broadcast, editorial meetings that had started during the trial period became more regular and organised. According to a let- ter to employees from Sami Haddad, Editor-in-Chief at the time, the editorial meeting would be at noon and was to be attended by produc- ers, broadcasters, journalists, head of news exchange and interview producers (3) . After the 19:30 bulletin presented by two announcers, the managers, announcers and producers would be sent a report reviewing the bulletin from Sami Haddad (4) .
(1) Jamal Rayan, personal interview, Doha, 1 October 2020.
(2) Hussein Jafar, personal interview, Ibid.
(3) According to Hala Alkhairy, the language editor, producer and assistant producer, and montage employees all used to attend the meetings as well. The meetings were fruitful, with constructive feedback for everyone on everything from editing to montage to broadcast perfor- mance.
(4) Letter from Sami Haddad to the newsroom employees dated 30 October 1996, one day
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