More staff problems at Al-Jazeera

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Al Jazeera’s English-language news channel has some major morale problems. At least 15 staff have left in the past few weeks, including head of news Steve Clark who quit last week. Clark’s departure is not that unexpected given that his wife (Jo Burgin, a former staffer with the station) is currently suing Al Jazeera over discrimination. But he is not alone, and sources at the channel suggest there’s continuing disharmony at Al Jazeera, most notably at the broadcaster’s Doha headquarters where there has always been something of a disconnect over “highly paid” expatriate staff and locally hired employees. The situation was not helped by the longer than expected gestation period from key on-air news anchors being hired and the channel actually going on air, when for almost a year some staff were paid significant salaries while relaxing alongside swimming pools while management procrastinated, and fixed technical bugs in readiness for the channel’s much-delayed launch date.

Al Jazeera English went live in November 2006, and is widely expected to be planning a relaunch shortly, as well as adding major news bureaux in Gaza and Nairobi. One staff blogger, typical of many, recently praised what the channel had achieved in its short life but with a sting in the note said staff were being treated with “disrespect, ingratitude, disdain, even downright contempt. They are lied to, ignored, cheated, abused, ridiculed. This is all done, of course, to ‘persuade’ them to leave.”

While this note might be said to be from one disaffected employee, there are many others. "I have never worked anywhere where morale was so low," one former staff member told The (London) Guardian recently. "Some people have worked very hard to produce a channel but there is no recognition whatsoever," and adding that the working environment at Doha was “hateful”.

Undoubtedly there would be some staff turnover in any organisation, and Al Jazeera’s HQ location in Doha is a tough and challenging environment to work within, hence the high salaries as compensation. But the staff grumbles mainly concern unpaid pension commitments, the withdrawl of certain contractual benefits, and a percieved bias at the channel to edge out the recruited “Westerners” in favour of lower-cost locals, now that the heavy lifting to get the station on air has been achieved.

Source: Rapid TV News

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