The Paradigm-breaker
Viewers from countries with a recent history (or current reality) of dictatorships innately understood the factors that can lead to totalitarian regimes. But Britons and Americans, who in World War II were on the right side of European history and don’t share a dictatorial past, had much less nuanced and sometimes more naive reactions to the film. Because the cultural baggage that all of us carry will always affect how we see the world. It’s not only our diverse newsrooms, but our diverse audience that make Al Jazeera what it is. And how ironic that it was by working for a non-European channel that I got to tell one of the most European stories of all. ‘The voice of the voiceless.’ That is who we are. Across borders, both physical and cultural. That’s how we gained and hold the trust of viewers around the world. May we continue to be that voice, regardless of language, for many years to come.
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