Technical Operations, the Network’s Beating Heart
A defining moment in my career was when I was entrusted with leading Network Operations, one of the vital organs of the organisation. There, we started the strategic planning to link all the network’s channel and overseas bureaus in one operation system. Together with our technical and engineering teams, we worked day and night to launch a fresh look for Al Jazeera’s 20th anniversary: elegant studios with world-class control rooms. Other projects followed, from linking broadcast centres in one operational system to renovating newsrooms. The peak was with the upgrading of the work environment and technical functions of Al Jazeera Mubasher to the automatic operating system. It is unprecedented in the region. The technological leap taken by the Network Operations extended to include our regional broadcast centres and bureaus overseas. The core element of all these projects was to pay due attention to our technical teams, honing their skills and enhancing their capabilities. A number of intensive training courses were customised for them. What makes Al Jazeera stand out among others is that it always embraces the latest technologies in the industry while accommodating the needs of viewers. In addition to the network’s editorial excellence, its solid technical operation provides an additional edge.
Technical Operations, the Network’s Beating Heart Feras Al-Suliti | Director of Network Operations
It all started with a telephone call from Al Jazeera Media Network’s Human Resources department in March 1999. I was summoned to complete my employment credentials. I had mixed feelings of anxiety and concern simply because I was joining a professional media vehicle where every second counts. I climbed my career ladder from the bottom up, beginning as a video editor; joining hands with Al Jazeera journalists within the newsroom; sparing no effort gathering, documenting and editing news to appear in the optimal technical shape.
The scenes of the planes flying into the World Trade Towers on 9/11 are unforgettable. Within seconds, the newsroom turned into a busy beehive. During the Arab Spring revolutions, I was tasked with leading both the Ingest Unit and the Library & Archive. I was then entrusted to lay down an engineering and operational plan for the Network’s Central Digital Archive Department under the AJWT Project. It is a complete infrastructure project that included civil and power, MEP, multiple data centres, as well as technical infrastructure and full-fledged studios.
Shaikh Ahmed bin Jassim Al Thani, the then director general of the network, appointed me as the archive affairs consultant, where a new phase of operations began; it was to build a centralised archive to feed all the network’s channels - in Doha, the main broadcast centres in Washington DC, London and Kuala Lumpur, and our bureaus around the world. The main goal was to transfer Al Jazeera’s entire taped archive into a digital form.
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