Today's News ~ Al Jazeera

Have I mentioned that I was lucky enough to score a tour of the world famous Al Jazeera News while the kids were in town? Yes, I said Al Jazeera, the one put on the map by Bin Laden himself, but has since been a force to be reckoned with by keeping the Middle East (and the world) abreast of the Arab Spring. No, it's not been the most popular news source in the States, but it's gaining steam. Even Hillary recently gave it the "real news" stamp of approval*. Visiting Al Jazeera is something I've secretly wanted to do since moving to Doha four years ago, so I mercilessly used my kids as pawns and contacted the powers that be to fulfill my dream. Voila, before I knew it, I had a parking pass in hand and an appointed hostess with the mostess to show us the way. She informed me that usually only journalists and news related outlets are afforded tours of the facilities. Wow, my friends really do have "wasta". Impressive. Ok, she may have winked when she said that, but if she did, I missed it. Anyway we made our way around the English and Arabic buildings, whizzing in and out of busy news rooms with monitors everywhere imaginable. I was shocked when our guide told me I could take pictures anywhere I wanted, but just no flash in certain areas. Transparency in action...impressed, again. The kids were glad that I used them as bait as we really felt like we were part of history and the future by visiting the origin of Al Jazeera. Oh, and the goody bags were the icing on the cupcake.

Code of Ethics

*“viewership of Al Jazeera is going up in the United States because it’s real news… You may not agree with it, but you feel like you’re getting real news around the clock instead of a million commercials and, you know, arguments between talking heads and the kind of stuff that we do on our news which, you know, is not particularly informative to us, let alone foreigners.”

...Hillary R Clinton

Special thanks to the parties
involved in making this happen.
We truly enjoyed your hospitality and kindness.

...Sybil, Shea, Dustin & Kristi

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