CO
This from today's release of
Private Eye:
Contains strong language.
Thoughts?
Connews.
Contains strong language.
Quote:
FOCUS ON AL JAZEERA
The sands of time are proving to be a life sentence for British hacks who took Al Jazeera TV's riyal and signed up for international broadcasting's answer to the French Foreign Legion. A cash crisis at the arabic answer to CNN has left more than 200 hacks and technical staff up the gulf without a paddle.
Housing, medical, and holiday flights home have been severly cut back, threatening to produce a torrent of defections back to Blighty. The first target of the hacks' rage was Wendy Pagan, head of human resources. She was so upset by their barrage of harsh questions at a mass staff meeting that she slammed her personal computer closed and walked out, saying, "I'm not **** putting up with this - I've had enough." Fagan caught the next flight out of Doha, where the satellite station is based, never to return.
This transfers the pressure on to her personnel colleague Stephanie Edwards, whose previous attempts to stop a rising wave of staff discontent at GMTV, the UK breakfast time broadcaster, resulted in her being invited to go freelance. Paul Corley, managing director of GMTV, told a colleague at the time, "We need someone who can beat the NUJ at their own game."
That shouldn't be a problem for Edwards this time, as Qatar doesn't enjoy the type of union laws we have in Britain. One British hack who tried to form a chapel (office branch) of the NUJ was summarily dismissed from Al Jazeera. Some angry employees hit back by contributing to the Friends of Al Jazeera website. But few have posted anything of late, after the Arabic management claimed they knew who the dirty bloggers were and would fire them if they did it again - though if they really knew who was leaking the stuff it seems more likely they would have sacked them on the spot.
Another ex-GMTV employee who may be regretting his defection to Al Jazeera is Alan Fisher, for whom the final straw at GMTV was being asked to do an item about returned Christmas presents. Fisher boasted at his leaving party of how he would soon be jetting round Europe and beyond as a "roving correspondent" based in the London newsroom.
Alas, it was not to be. The Al Jazeera forward planning unit spent weeks clearing his papers for the Davos summit, but at the last moment one of the Arabic senior management decided that a reporter called Mohammed from the Arabic service would be a better choice. Poor Mohammed - fondly known as "Half a Mo" - got lost at Frankfurt Airport, and only managed to cover the final day of the event.
Meanwhile one of the Al Jazeera anchors in London, Stephen Cole, is eagerly eyeing up new opportunities in Doha. One of the reasons he was hired is that he broke the BBC strike in May 2005, proudly presenting the six and ten o'clock news on BBC1 while his colleagues were outside on the picket line protesting at plans for 3,800 redundancies. He is no doubt ready to carry out a similar "service" for Al Jaz, should hacks display any tendencies towards industrial democracy in the shifting sands of Doha.
The sands of time are proving to be a life sentence for British hacks who took Al Jazeera TV's riyal and signed up for international broadcasting's answer to the French Foreign Legion. A cash crisis at the arabic answer to CNN has left more than 200 hacks and technical staff up the gulf without a paddle.
Housing, medical, and holiday flights home have been severly cut back, threatening to produce a torrent of defections back to Blighty. The first target of the hacks' rage was Wendy Pagan, head of human resources. She was so upset by their barrage of harsh questions at a mass staff meeting that she slammed her personal computer closed and walked out, saying, "I'm not **** putting up with this - I've had enough." Fagan caught the next flight out of Doha, where the satellite station is based, never to return.
This transfers the pressure on to her personnel colleague Stephanie Edwards, whose previous attempts to stop a rising wave of staff discontent at GMTV, the UK breakfast time broadcaster, resulted in her being invited to go freelance. Paul Corley, managing director of GMTV, told a colleague at the time, "We need someone who can beat the NUJ at their own game."
That shouldn't be a problem for Edwards this time, as Qatar doesn't enjoy the type of union laws we have in Britain. One British hack who tried to form a chapel (office branch) of the NUJ was summarily dismissed from Al Jazeera. Some angry employees hit back by contributing to the Friends of Al Jazeera website. But few have posted anything of late, after the Arabic management claimed they knew who the dirty bloggers were and would fire them if they did it again - though if they really knew who was leaking the stuff it seems more likely they would have sacked them on the spot.
Another ex-GMTV employee who may be regretting his defection to Al Jazeera is Alan Fisher, for whom the final straw at GMTV was being asked to do an item about returned Christmas presents. Fisher boasted at his leaving party of how he would soon be jetting round Europe and beyond as a "roving correspondent" based in the London newsroom.
Alas, it was not to be. The Al Jazeera forward planning unit spent weeks clearing his papers for the Davos summit, but at the last moment one of the Arabic senior management decided that a reporter called Mohammed from the Arabic service would be a better choice. Poor Mohammed - fondly known as "Half a Mo" - got lost at Frankfurt Airport, and only managed to cover the final day of the event.
Meanwhile one of the Al Jazeera anchors in London, Stephen Cole, is eagerly eyeing up new opportunities in Doha. One of the reasons he was hired is that he broke the BBC strike in May 2005, proudly presenting the six and ten o'clock news on BBC1 while his colleagues were outside on the picket line protesting at plans for 3,800 redundancies. He is no doubt ready to carry out a similar "service" for Al Jaz, should hacks display any tendencies towards industrial democracy in the shifting sands of Doha.
Thoughts?
Connews.
