Huffington Post teaming up with Khanfar to launch Arabic Edition
The Huffington Post is teaming up with the former head of Al Jazeera to launch an Arabic-language edition targeting a fast-growing population of mobile-connected Middle Eastern youth.
Huffington Post’s decision to make its Arabic debut, set for early 2015, comes as the region is gripped by events from the Gaza conflict to renewed sectarian violence in Iraq to the fallout from Libya’s elections.
“The Huffington Post’s DNA of a combination of original reporting plus a platform for voices in the region to express themselves in video, in text, in pictures is quite needed,” said Arianna Huffington, president and editor-in-chief of Huffington Post Media Group.
Like most of its international sites, the Arabic edition is a partnership between Huffington Post, which provides its platform, and a local media group. Stories and video will be produced by local correspondents trained by Integral Media Strategies, a digital news start-up founded by Wadah Khanfar, former director-general of Qatar-based Al Jazeera.
HuffPost Arabi aims to “increase the diversity of news in this part of the world” and engage Arabic-speaking youth in a region where more than a third of the population is aged 15 to 30, said Mr Khanfar, who left Al Jazeera in 2011 during the Arab spring protests. “This is the population that would love to be connected and to share the news.”
Unlike other western media groups with outposts in Doha, Dubai or Abu Dhabi, however, HuffPost Arabi’s editorial headquarters will be in London. Mr Khanfar said the site “should be, at this moment in time, [based] outside the region. That will enable it to be distant enough to be fair, balanced, not politically involved, not ideologically biased.”
Ms Huffington said the site would not shy away from sensitive subjects, despite press and internet restrictions in many countries in the region.
Read more at Financial Times
On Twitter
Huffington Post will be launching an Arabic version. HQed in London & @khanfarw at the helm. https://t.co/KgJSFfcxV7 via @shannonpareil
— Yasser Masood Khan (@YasserM86) August 6, 2014Congrats @khanfarw! Huffington Post to launch Arabic-language edition - http://t.co/RHIegjIEK0 http://t.co/mty7PrEhnD с помощью @FT
— Pavel Andreev (@pavelandreev) August 6, 2014Former #Aljazeera chief Wadah @khanfarw & @ariannahuff to launch @HuffingtonPost Arabic edition from London - http://t.co/0hdXQvPMqe
— Ihtisham Hibatullah (@ihtishamh) August 6, 2014
