Al Jazeera: A Window of Light and Truth
I was lucky enough to have an elite group of professors at the institute, but my greatest mentor was Al Jazeera. Simply watching the news channel was enough to help me pick up the skills of the trade. From drafting a short piece of news to writing a full-fledged report, I was keen on learning the tiniest details. As I watched, rather than focusing on a guest’s answers, my attention was on how to prepare for and conduct a good interview. I was picking up trade secrets from the best in the business and learnt a lot from Al Jazeera journalists, who I am now proud to call my colleagues. I was overwhelmed with joy when I was told I had been accepted as a trainee at the Al Jazeera bureau in Rabat. When I first entered the office, I could hear my heart beat; it seemed exactly like a beehive. My dissertation in the final year at the institute was ‘Al Jazeera’s Maghreb Bulletin,’ yet another divine sign. After graduating, I worked for both local and international press and television agencies, but I never lost sight of my ultimate goal: Al Jazeera. My dream finally come true at the end of 2016. No sooner had I joined Al Jazeera than the Moroccan authorities suspended my temporary accreditation, without assigning reasons.
I had no alternative but to join the Doha-based newsroom, pending the reinstatement. The wait dragged on for more than four years. However, the newsroom experience was beyond rich. It was a wonderful opportunity to gain first-hand knowledge of how this great media organisation functions. I learnt a lot. Having covered the French military operations in Mali years before, I was selected for a deployment in Afghanistan. With mixed feelings of enthusiasm and concern, I accepted the mission as I was craving to go back into the field. A short stint of three months in Kabul was followed by four others stretching over two years of field work in Afghanistan. It was a unique journalistic experience. As a journalist in a war zone, I tread the thin line separating safety and freedom of speech. Looking at the complicated nature of the conflict and the warring parties, it is a battle for survival while telling the truth. The only constant factor is that unsuspecting innocent civilians are paying the heaviest price.
Later, I was deployed to Iraq where I covered the aftermaths of war. A story on the victims of chemical weapons in both the first and second Fallujah battles was another milestone in my professional journey. After that, I went to Libya, where I documented the tragedies of displaced people fleeing the belligerent assaults on the capital, Tripoli, by Khalifa Haftar’s forces. The destruction was massive; the suffering enormous. With Haftar’s defeat, more tragedies are still surfacing. Amid all these dark times, we never lost sight of Al Jazeera’s mission: to tell the human story; to be the voice of the voiceless. Al Jazeera is not only our window to the world; it is a window of light and truth amid all this darkness.
350
351
Made with FlippingBook Online newsletter