Torben Brandt of IMS asking questions to Riz Khan via the internet. Photo: Rasmus Steen/IMS

Partners and experts shared a wealth of knowledge about the media in the Arab world and experiences on collaboration accross borders at a seminar held in Copenhagen on Thursday 19 March

The seminar was organised by the Arab team within IMS and focused on sharing experiences on partnerships between Danish and Arab media and to laying the foundations for new ideas for future partnerships. Held at the "Salon K" at Huset in Magstræde in Copenhagen, the meeting gathered around 40 participants representing a broad range of age groups and professional walks of life.

- It's great to attend a meeting like this, where people can walk in from the street and get access to such skilled expertise on media in the Arab world, said Esben Ørberg enthusiastically. Head of communications in the Danish Union of Journalists, he had joined the meeting to gather insight before he himself ventures to the Middle East on a training course for Danish journalists next week.

Q and A with Riz Khan from Al Jazeera English

One of the highlights of the meeting was a Q and A session with Riz Khan, formerly a CNN news anchor and now hosting the TV program "Q and A with Riz Khan" on Al Jazeera English TV channel.

During the Gaza crisis in January 2009, Al Jazeera English reached about 20 million viewers through TV and the Internet, as the channel was one of very few who had a crew on location inside Gaza that enabled Al Jazeera to broadcast 24 hours a day during the crisis.

Speaking from the United States via the Internet to the participants in Copenhagen, Riz Khan gave his explanation for the success of Al Jazeera's English channel:

-    Al Jazeera English takes its departure in the view, that news do not have to come from Western media only. We broadcast to anyone who can see us and as it turns out, we are strong in covering issues challenging developing countries. In my program, I get calls from people from all over the world, and for me the key was always to give the public globally a voice to call out to world leaders, he said.

Reflecting on the success of Al Jazeera, Riz Khan said:
- Arab journalists convey a greater sensitivity about the Arab region and the issues at hand. The Middle East is not just about the Israeli-Palestine conflict. But at the same time, we are actually and truly an international channel.

Expert views on the Arab region

Following introductions by IMS executive director Jesper Højberg and teamleader in the IMS Arab team, Torben Brandt, Ms. Naomi Sakr, senior lecturer in communication in the School of Media, Arts and Design at the University of Westminster and director of the Arab Media Centre, gave an introduction to the media in the Arab world. Debating the winds of change in the Arab media, Naomi Sakr said:

-    There are more than 500 TV channels in the Arab world. This has called many to conclude that the Arab world is witnessing a virtual boom in media these days. However, behind the apparent diversity lies in reality a monopoly. Several channels use the same advertising agencies that are mainly dominated by a few people in Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and the UAE. So let's not exaggerate the winds of change, she said putting immediately a finger on the financial vulnerability and thus the real key to independence of many Arab media institutions.

Michael Irving Jensen, formerly a lecturer at Carsten Niebuhr Institute at the University of Copenhagen, shared his reflections on the coverage by Danish media concerning issues in the Arab world.

He quoted a passage from the latest book by Dutch Middle East Correspondent, Joris Luyendijk who says:

"Those who know the exception only, may mistake the exception for being the rule."

-    The news coverage of the Middle East and The Arab world is almost exclusively focusing on the conflicts in the region, which leads us to believe that this is the main event in the Arab world, Michael Irving Jensen said.

Partners: professional collaboration first and foremost

During the last ssession of the meeting, Danish media representatives shared their experiences in being involved in IMS activities in the Arab world.

Anders Jerichow, chronicle editor at Danish daily Politiken, who has been involved in Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism project, stressed that ARIJ had taken the route of emphasising professional collaboration and exchange, saying:

- The Arab world in general and the Arab media n particular is something the West is mostly talk about and not with. ARIJ is a solid testimony to the fact that Arab journalists are full of ambitions, and that Arab journalists share a common ambition with reporters globally to document news stories with facts and to go about their work professionally, he said.

Kerstin Øhlenschlæger from DR Programme 3, shared her experiences with working with Radio Arabesque in Syria:

- We started off on a quite unlevelled playing field - we represented a 45-year old "Grand Dame" in public service radio and entered into collaboration with a brand-new commercial radio station with three employees! We have had lots of talks about our differences in order to find the common platforms for collaboration. But we are there today, and we are finding that the benefits are mutual - we can learn a lot from all the creative thinking developing in Radio Arabesque, she said.

From the world of documentary film, Michael Opstrup, producer at Final Cut, supported the view that partnerships may be unbalanced for good reasons:

- Proaction Film in Syria picked Final Cut out of five different Danish production companies because they found in us what they came looking for. We had a specific expertise to offer which they needed and wanted - so obviously, the partnership was that of the expert coaching the apprentice. 

The seminar was concluded with snacks and drinks to give all participants an opportunity to follow up on one-on-one. Anders Weber, a trained journalist and now returning to studying contemporary Middle East at SDU made the most of the seminar saying that he now had his theme for a thesis ready.