Sheikh Hamad’s media legacy comes into focus after his death at 74
Al Jazeera credited Qatar’s former emir with creating a channel that changed Arab broadcasting and drew pressure from governments.
By Sofia Marchetti · World Affairs Correspondent
3 min read
Qatar’s former emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, has died at 74, and Al Jazeera is framing his creation of the channel as one of his central legacies. The network said the outlet he founded in 1996 broke with state-controlled broadcasting in the Middle East and gave Arab audiences a new platform for political debate and field reporting.
Al Jazeera said Sheikh Hamad, who later held the title Father Emir, backed the channel after becoming Qatar’s ruler in 1995. The network said the project grew within a few years into a major international media organization and was formally named Al Jazeera Media Network in July 2005.
In a statement Sunday, Director General Sheikh Nasser bin Faisal Al Thani mourned Sheikh Hamad and described him as the figure who set the institution in motion. The statement said Sheikh Hamad understood “the power of the word” and viewed independent media as a force in public life.
Early support for a new channel
Mohamed Krishan, a founding anchor, told Al Jazeera he met Sheikh Hamad in 1993, when he was still crown prince, and heard an unusually ambitious case for change in Qatar and the wider region. Krishan said journalists later received a clear instruction as the channel was being assembled in Doha in 1996: work professionally and follow the ethics of the trade.
Al Jazeera journalist Taysir Allouni told the network that some Arab journalists were surprised that such an outlet would be based in a Gulf state. He said the level of editorial freedom promised to staff appeared hard to believe at the time.
According to Al Jazeera, the channel sought to reduce Arab dependence on Western news agencies by placing its own correspondents in the field. The network said Sheikh Hamad also gave its journalists political protection to cover sensitive issues, including matters inside Qatar.
Krishan recalled Sheikh Hamad telling staff that they had helped create a new reality for Arab media built around freedom of expression and “the opinion and the other opinion,” a phrase associated with the channel’s early identity.
Pressure and attacks
Al Jazeera said its coverage brought political costs for Qatar, angering regional governments and Western officials. Ahmed al-Sheikh, a former director of news at the channel, told the network that pressure intensified during the U.S.-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Al-Sheikh recounted being told that a CIA director had urged Sheikh Hamad to rein in the network. He said the emir rejected the request and challenged Western officials who had promoted press freedom and democracy while asking Qatar to silence Al Jazeera.
The network said its Kabul office was bombed during the U.S. war in Afghanistan and that its office was also hit during the U.S. occupation of Iraq in 2003, when Al Jazeera staff and employees were killed. The Daily Mirror reported in November 2005, citing a top-secret Downing Street memo, that then-U.S. President George W. Bush had discussed bombing Al Jazeera’s headquarters and that British Prime Minister Tony Blair talked him out of it, according to unnamed sources cited by the newspaper.
Al Jazeera said 24 of its journalists and staff have been killed in targeted attacks in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Gaza, the occupied West Bank and Yemen.
As the network nears its 30th anniversary, Al Jazeera said it would continue the project Sheikh Hamad began. The network cast his support for the channel as a lasting part of Qatar’s political and cultural role in the region.
This story draws on original reporting from Al Jazeera.