ZDF gains Arab ally
Teutonic pubcaster, Al-Jazeera team up
Agreement, signed by ZDF managing director Dieter Stolte and Al-Jazeera chairman Sheik Hamad bin Thamer Al-Thani in the Qatar capital Doha on Tuesday, gives both webs a wide range of cooperative opportunities, including access to each other's news footage and archive material.
Regional access
Al-Jazeera bureaus in the Middle East will give ZDF access to web's footage from all Arab-lingo and Islamic territories.
ZDF has offices in Tel Aviv, Cairo and Tehran. For Al-Jazeera, which broadcasts throughout Arab-speaking countries, access to ZDF's vast news libraries and current-events coverage would expand its international coverage. ZDF is also set to lend the Qatar newscaster support with the opening of a new bureau in the German capital.
Although the contract was prepared last summer, Stolte said the Sept. 11 attacks in the U.S. postponed the actual signing. "Al-Jazeera has clearly shown in the past months how important and influential news coverage from this region can be," he added.
In addition, the broadcasters will offer training opportunities to each other's journalists and production support.
Al-Jazeera has similar agreements with NBC, Japan's TBS, China's CCTV, U.K. web ITN, Italian pubcaster RAI and French broadcasters France Television and TF1.
