Media developments in Qatar

It's good to see someone finally celebrating the steps forward Qatar is taking. Really, we should have more positive articles like this; the newspapers are always so negative all the time.

“This opening is a revolution here in a region where until now everyone has helped their friends, but no one has helped people who love freedom of the press,” Menard, the Director General of the Doha Media Freedom Centre, tells me, before adding, “The other revolutionary aspect is that we are not only interested in the Arab world but the whole world, originating from an Arabic country. This is very important because we have already helped 100 journalists all over the world. This is a global centre and we plan to open offices around the world next year.”

...

Indeed 2008 has been a significant year for media developments in Qatar. This year has also seen the inauguration of Northwestern University, one of the leading American journalism and communications programmes in Qatar – a very clear sign that media freedom is at the top of the country’s agenda. Now American professors are helping shape this media revolution, and are giving their students the tools they need to enter into a close-knit society and report the hitherto un-reported.

“I would hope and imagine that the greatest impact of the centre will be internally - one needs to start at home,” says Richard Roth, Senior Associate Dean for Journalism, sitting at his desk at Northwestern University in Qatar. “I know from our Qatari students that they want to talk about censorship and are very aware of it. One Qatari girl told me she is in this programme because she wants things reported which she doesn’t see in the news here. These young people have a real appetite for change.”

It is this fresh impetus of youngsters with ideals and hopes that gives the Doha Centre for Media Freedom a realistic chance of working. The students include a self-titled “Arabian Oprah” from Palestine, a Lebanese girl who donned purple contact lenses on the opening day of the university to show her sense of hope at this novel opportunity, and an Egyptian named Hamad who clearly does not mind being in the minority with 76% female students in the first year.

As Qatari student Mariam explains: “I think most of the girls applied for communications because it is really needed in today’s world in Qatar.” Here are two strong desires combining: the yearning for freedom of expression and for female independence in a hitherto highly patriarchal society.

Meeting these youngsters, hope – and self-confidence - is pervasive. And, as Mimi White, head of the communications programme at NWU-Q, points out: “Our students are very passionate about questions of freedom of expression. I think that is why this new centre provides such a great starting point, even if everything in the region is not as you would hope for yet.”

This new generation is undoubtedly benefiting from a wider modernisation process that has been wholeheartedly supported by the Emir HH Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani and his wife HH Sheikha Mozah Nasser al-Misnad.
Menard confirms as much back in his office in Doha: “We have the necessary budget and the moral backing of the authorities in Qatar. Each time I spoke to Her Highness Sheikha Mozah, she said this is a place to defend press freedom. She never asked me: do this, don’t do this. We work in complete freedom here. This is the deal with her.”

Source: Gulf Times