Wadah Khanfar

Wadah Khanfar

Wadah Khanfar is the Director General of the Al Jazeera Network.

Introduction

Ranked as one of the most ‘Powerful People in the World’ by Forbes Magazine (2009), named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum (Davos), recognized as the 8th most influential Arab in the world by Arabian Business, and one of the most influential Muslims in the world (Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre), Wadah Khanfar is the Director General of the Al Jazeera Network.

During his tenure Al Jazeera went from a single channel to a media network with multiple properties including the Al Jazeera Arabic channel, Al Jazeera English, Al Jazeera Documentary, Al Jazeera Sport, Al Jazeera’s news websites, the Al Jazeera Media Training and Development Center, the Al Jazeera Center for Studies, Al Jazeera Mubasher (Live), and Al Jazeera Mobile.

Student Life

Khanfar was born in the Palestinian city of Jinin. He studied Engineering between 1985 to 1990 at the University of Jordan and went on to post-graduate studies in Philosophy, African Studies, and International Politics. During this time, Khanfar started a Student Union with a group of students and colleagues and started an inter-university dialogue group amongst students constituted from a range of political backgrounds. In 1989/1990, he helped to organize forums, protests, festivals and demonstrations for student rights.

Journalism

Khanfar has covered some of the world's key political zones for the Al Jazeera Channel since 1997. Khanfar's first role in the organisation was as a correspondent in South Africa. In 2001/2002 he was a war correspondent in Afghanistan and during the war in Iraq, he reported from Kurdish-controlled territory in the North. Later, he was appointed as the Chief of the Baghdad Bureau- the biggest operation for Al Jazeera outside Al Jazeera’s Qatar headquarters and was the biggest media operation inside Iraq. Al Jazeera at that time became the first TV station to cover the developments inside Baghdad, inside Iraq, and became the main source of information about the early military attacks against the Americans. During this time, Khanfar wrote a letter to U.S. Administrator Paul Bremer asking the U.S. to stop what was described as an intimidation campaign against Al Jazeera’s journalists. Khanfar became Managing Director of the Al Jazeera Channel in 2003 and Director General of the Al Jazeera Network in 2006. As a managing director, he launched the Al Jazeera Code of Ethics and Al Jazeera’s Code of Conduct in July 2004 at the First Al Jazeera International Forum. The Code stated that professional standards and balanced and fair coverage should govern and guide the Channel’s newsroom rather than political or diplomatic interference.

Journalism of Depth

Khanfar initiated a concept called 'Journalism of Depth' which is the framework for Al Jazeera’s approach to journalism. The concept refers to the idea that to properly convey the meaning of facts and figures journalists need to contextualize events in the social, cultural, historical, and political context from which they emerge. Khanfar contrasts this to ‘headline culture’ which may convey the immediacy of an event but conveys very little understanding. The background to journalism of depth is that contemporary news media are in a crisis and are suffering from a range of critical problems including reductionism, media elitism, and dissociation from context resulting in news that is fragmentary and chaotic rather than being informative and explanatory.

US Pressure

While Khanfar was leading the Al Jazeera Baghdad Bureau - the US made demands on the Channel to change its coverage of Iraq. This led to tension for the Channel’s many journalists and crew resulting in Khanfar sending a letter to Paul Bremer asking the US to stop the intimidation campaign against Al Jazeera’s journalists. Al Jazeera journalists and crew were at that time detained for months at the Abu Ghraib prison where some of them were tortured. In an earlier incident in 2003 a US bombardment of the Channel’s offices led to the death of one its journalist’s Tareq Ayyoub.

During the war American and British accusations against Al Jazeera intensified and Donald Rumsfeld and President George W. Bush started to publicly criticize and blame Al Jazeera for America’s failure to restore order in Iraq. It later came to the attention of the Daily Mirror in the UK that a leaked memo documented a private discussion between George Bush and Tony Blair on bombing Al Jazeera headquarters, supposedly immediately before the attack on Fallujah in April, 2004. A Freedom of Information request was made by Al Jazeera for disclosure on the memo but no information was ever released. The public servants who leaked the memo were later sentenced by the British government.

First Visit to the United States

In July 2009, Khanfar was invited to the US by leading political and media think tanks including the Middle East Institute, New America Foundation, Council on Foreign Relations, and George Washington University. This was the first time that a Director General from Al Jazeera has visited the US. During the visit Khanfar also met with senior officials and advisors at the the Whitehouse, State Department and the Pentagon and perhaps signals a change in the inner circles of the government to dialogue with Al Jazeera under the new Obama administration. On the visit to the US Mr. Khanfar appeared on the Charlie Rose Show, NPR’s Diane Rheem show, and presented at the Paley Center for Media.

References

External links

• Forbes Magazine The World's Most Powerful People
• New America Foundation Pushing Reset on America's Relationship with Al Jazeera and the Arab World
• Foreign Policy Magazine Khanfar: Obama has opened a window of opportunity
• Charlie Rose Show A Conversation with Wadah Khanfar
• PBS interview with Wadah Khanfar
• Indiantelevision.com's interview with Wadah Khanfar
• Time magazine's interview with Wadah Khanfar
• Democracy Now!'s interview with Wadah Khanfar
• Wadah Khanfar named as eighth most powerful Arab
• Foreign Policy's interview with Wadah Khanfar