Al Jazeera announces major leadership overhaul amid Gaza coverage surge

 JournalismPakistan.com |  Published last month |  JP Global Monitoring

DOHA — Al Jazeera Media Network has announced a significant reshuffle of its senior leadership, appointing Nasser Bin Faisal al-Thani, a former Qatari foreign ministry official, as the new director general. Middleeasteye.net reported that al-Thani, who began his career at Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2013 and later served as ambassador, will oversee the network’s strategic direction.

The network also announced several other key appointments. Ahmad Alyafei, who has been managing director of the Al Jazeera Arabic Channel since 2018, has been named the director of Al Jazeera channels, a newly created role that gives him full editorial oversight across all platforms. Issa Ali, with over two decades of management experience, is the new managing director of Al Jazeera English, while Asef Hamidi has been appointed managing director of Al Jazeera Arabic. In addition, former BBC journalist Ibrahim Helal will replace veteran Salah Negm as the director of news at Al Jazeera English.

The reshuffle comes as the Qatar-funded network experiences renewed attention for its coverage of the Gaza conflict, which has escalated since October 2023. More than 238,000 Palestinians have been killed, wounded, or reported missing, with recent reports indicating that over 80 percent of casualties in Gaza have been civilians. Al Jazeera’s reporting has included the deaths of several of its own journalists in Gaza, including Ismail al-Ghoul, Anas al-Sharif, and, most recently Mohamed Salama, who also worked with Middle East Eye.

The network, credited with playing a pivotal role in the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings, has a history of friction with Israel, which banned the network last year after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu labeled it a “Hamas mouthpiece.” Al Jazeera has also faced scrutiny from the United States, with the Trump administration ordering AJ+, its US-based social media division, to register as a foreign agent in 2020.

Ahmad Alyafei, in one of the internal announcements, emphasized that the new appointments had the confidence of senior management and reaffirmed the network’s commitment to its founding mission of editorial independence. The changes signal Al Jazeera’s intent to strengthen leadership amid heightened global attention on its reporting and expanding influence across Arabic and English-speaking audiences.

Photo: Karim Jaafar/AFP