By Ray Hanania
Laila Al Sheikhly
Alarab News Channel, the Saudi-owned television channel launched in Bahrain this year, today announced the hiring of Laila Al Sheikhly as a part of the TV channel’s news team.
The new news channel is being viewed as an attempt by Saudi interests to counter rising Islamic extremism, but is also feared will be used to support Israel and undermine support of Palestinian rights in the Middle East.
The news channel issued a press release on PR News Wire detailing Sheikhly’s hiring, but did not mention the rising criticism of the involvement int he channel of pro-Israel extremists.
Al Sheikhly will anchor one of the channel’s news programs and bringing with her nearly 25 years of experience in broadcast journalism. Laila joins Alarab from Al Jazeera and will form part of a near-300 strong team bringing the region’s freshest news channel to air later this year.
“To be part of a new channel is a great opportunity; to be part of a new channel with the clear vision and the professional standards of Alarab is an opportunity too good to miss,” said Ms Sheikhly.
“I hope I can bring a style to the channel which touches the audience and wins us a loyal group of followers.”
Alarab is a brand new style of news programming, designed to give a new generation of news watchers what they need. Alarab aims to bring its viewers news from around the world which impacts their lives, and set it in the context of the region’s history and politics. The all-Arabic channel will include extensive news programming as well as regular news roundups, travel and the channel’s deal with Bloomberg will enable it to bring business people the very latest information they need.
Al Arab TV Logo Bahrain, owned by Prince Al Waleed and reportedly by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg
Laila Al Sheikhly started her career in journalism in 1990 in Washington as a newscaster with ANA. In 1994 she moved to BBC Arabia to become its first female presenter and her list of firsts continued in 1996 when she because the first Arab female to host a political programme when she did so with MBC in 1996. She spent seven years at Abu Dhabi television from 1999 to 2006 when she joined Al Jazeera in 2006.
Bloomberg is owned by Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire Mayor of New York City who has attacked and savaged the Arab World over the years and most recently declared his support for Israel’s assault of the Gaza Strip which has taken the lives of more than 700 Palestinian civilians including more than 150 children and infants.
Reports state that the new channel is owned by Saudi billionaire Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal and also Michael Bloomberg as a silent investor and partner.
Alarab is privately owned by Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, independent from Kingdom Holding Company and Rotana Group, two corporations controlled by the prince. It is headquartered in Manama’s Media City complex. The channel is based outside Saudi Arabia as the country does not allow independent news channels to operate within its borders.
The channel’s director is Jamal Khashoggi, former editor of Al Watan, a newspaper in Saudi Arabia. Khashoggi was removed as editor in 2010 after Al Watan published an article criticizing Salafism, a fundamentalist Islamic movement.
The channel is partners with U.S. financial news channel Bloomberg Television, which will provide five hours of daily programming, including financial bulletins, analysis, reports on regional business leaders, and global financial news. The partnership will bring Alarab into direct competition with Arabic-language financial news channel CNBC Arabiya.
Many observers in the Arab World have expressed concerns that Bloomberg will temper the channels coverage of Israel’s brutality against Muslims, Palestinians and Christian Arabs in occupied Palestine and will slant coverage to downplay oppression by Arab dictators.
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rayhanania
Ray Hanania — Managing Editor
RayHanania@theArabDailyNews.com
Ray Hanania is an award winning former Chicago City Hall political reporter and columnist who covered the beat from 1976 through 1992 (Mayor Daley to Mayor Daley). Palestinian Arab Christian, Hanania’s parents originate from Jerusalem and Bethlehem.
Hanania is the recipient of four (4) Chicago Headline Club “Peter Lisagor Awards” for Column writing. In November 2006, he was named “Best Ethnic American Columnist” by the New American Media;In 2009, he received the prestigious Sigma Delta Chi Award for Writing from the Society of Professional Journalists. Hanania has also received two (2) Chicago Stick-o-Type awards from the Chicago Newspaper Guild, and in 1990 was nominated by the Chicago Sun-Times for a Pulitzer Prize for his four-part series on the Palestinian Intifada.
His personal website is www.TheMediaOasis.com. Email him at: RayHanania@theArabDailyNews.com.
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