Dr Mostefa Souag, acting director general of Al Jazeera Media Network, was one of the key speakers at the Africa Senior Media Dialogue – an event jointly organised by the United Nations (Office of the Special Adviser on Africa), the African Union Commission, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, UNESCO and the NEPAD Coordinating Agency. We invited him to share with us his views about Al Jazeera and journalism in general.

What exactly has made Al Jazeera the success story that it is today? 
Al Jazeera came at a moment when the Arab media was very far from professional.  Most of the media were government-owned and most of the few private ones were mouthpieces for the government and did not care much for professional journalism. Al Jazeera came to change that. The three main pillars of success are professionalism, freedom and money. With these three you can do a lot of things. We had professionalism and freedom and, luckily, the support of the state of Qatar. The Emir of Qatar at that time, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa, decided that he wanted to develop the Arab media through bringing in a professional team and giving them the means to be successful. 

What does the Emir of Qatar have to gain from giving so much money to support a TV station that did not give him any advantages in its reporting? 
Other than being a good man who wanted a good media network for the Arab world, Qatar’s image and reputation are enhanced by having Al Jazeera. There is nothing that the Arabs have done recently that is as successful as Al Jazeera. This is a big gain; it’s not something small. We call it soft power. Take Norway or Sweden, one of the soft powers that they have is the centre for peace or promoting human rights. Their governments don’t get anything directly from that but they are appreciated for hosting them. 

What is your relationship with Saudi Arabia?
Saudi Arabia has been against Al Jazeera from the beginning. We were allowed to cover the Hajj pilgrimage very few times. Last time, we were not even allowed to do that. In the last two years or so, before the blockade started, the Saudis allowed us to have an office in Saudi Arabia with some restrictions. We accepted as that gave us a foothold there. But then they decided to shut it down and I don’t know what the journalists there are doing because we are not allowed to communicate with them. 

What about advertising?
Saudi companies are not allowed to advertise on Al Jazeera. They advertise on lots of media, but not a penny of advertising money goes to Al Jazeera. 

And so how do you react to that?
We know why it’s done, so we get on with our work. Most of our budget comes from the state of Qatar. We are not supposed to be a commercial entity; we look for impact, social issues, human rights and other such issues. That’s why we are not liked by states like Saudi Arabia and others. We raise a lot of awareness about the social issues that people should know about. We make our audience aware of their rights, bad practices in their countries, corruption etc. That is why they do not like us. 

With all the means that you have, what do you feel when you look at the state of the media in Africa?
I cannot talk for the African media or about them because I don’t know them that well. However, during the few occasions I had the chance to meet African journalists, I was impressed by their desire to learn and develop their countries and their continent. Of course, there are limitations on their freedom and African journalists often face quite a few challenges when they move away from what their governments want them to do. It’s a question of safety. Then there are other limitations such as training and sometimes they don’t have the skills they need or the equipment but they are working with what they have. The most important thing is the content. The form is good and attracts people, but you can do that with content as well. Plus, they have an environment where they can do wonders, in terms of developing their continent. The government should help them instead of oppressing them. In the end, it will work for the good of the whole country. 

You must have done a lot of training. What kind of ethical advice do you give to your journalists? Suppose I was a new journalist at Al Jazeera, how would you prepare me to work for such a television station?
First, I would give you the code of ethics and the editorial standards which I would say is your Quran or Bible. Then there would training and that goes on all the time, about standards, content, ethical issues… If you are a correspondent or a cameraman who might go to any risky area, you don’t go until you have been through the training. And you spend months under observation until you show that you can adapt to the newsroom and the standards of Al Jazeera. If you can, good; if not then we will either find you something else to do or ask to you to look for a job somewhere else. 

Does Al Jazeera observe neutrality at all times?
Yes. Our stand is that journalists are not supposed to get involved in politics; they are not politicians or militants. They are just journalists and they should be only on the side of the people. They are just reporting the stories of people, not being ideologues or politicians or whatever. To be objective and balanced, you have to give a platform to all sides, even when you sympathise with the victims. If you give a victim a voice, you have to give the perpetrator a voice as well to understand why he did what he did. It’s important for your audience to understand all sides of the story. If you don’t do that, then you are taking sides and presenting your audience only what you want them to see. It’s like giving a verdict. We don’t want to do that. We want to empower our audience by giving them the right information and perspective they need. People are intelligent. We are human beings, we know our instincts, feelings and sense of right and wrong. 

Don’t you ever present an analysis with a certain slant that might be yours?
Not our journalists. What we do at Al Jazeera is that we cover events, news as accurately as possible. We put the news in a context, bring all the different angles, background etc. so people can understand how it happened and then we bring in experts – our guests on Al Jazeera – from different sides for their input. So if you talking about Yemen, for example, you have people from the Houthis and the Saudis and all sides who see things from differing perspectives so you get the depth necessary for a balanced story.  So, you have news and programmes that provide facts, you have context that our reporters know and then analysis done by experts, and then you have politicians and people with opinions. Al Jazeera people are not supposed to give opinions. They just report facts. 

But what’s wrong with expressing an opinion?
In the written press, you have the reports and then the editorial content of the paper, which, generally speaking, shows the approach. But people read it as an opinion and separate it from the news and facts. On the outside you might be pro- or anti-government, but inside you show facts and different opinions. The media that is doing this kind of work is more credible. I do understand the other side that says that journalists have to be participants and have to commit themselves. In Al Jazeera, we are committed but only to people. We can mention the ethical standards, or the legal standards surrounding an issue, we can talk about the law, social norms and then bring in experts, moralists and philosophers to talk about that. In the print media I understand that you need editorial content, but with a worldwide audience you need to be objective. 

We were talking in the conference about harassment of journalists. In Mauritius, there has been regression in the freedom of journalists to do their job, what do you think about that? 
There are some countries that have done well when it comes to protecting journalists and Mauritius is one of them. That is so good for the country’s reputation and image of those of the government as well. But then when a government starts eating into the rights of journalists, you have to fight it right from the beginning; otherwise the disease will start spreading like cancer. It may take years before it becomes right again, with police, prosecutors and the politicians. Please don’t allow it to happen in Mauritius because you do have a good environment for journalism.