AKEED, Husam Assal

On 27 May, a local website posted an old video clip under the headline "Leaked Video From Al Jazeera TV Reveals How Talk Shows Are Moderated." The clip shows Ali Al Dhufairi, an announcer on the Qatari-based Al Jazeera TV, with his guest, Arab thinker Azmi Bishara, behind the scenes of one of the talk shows. There is no reference to the date when the clip was recorded. 

The Jordanian Media Credibility Monitor (AKEED) tracked down the video, whose content suggests that it was recorded during the beginnings of the so-called "Arab Spring." The clip itself is available on Dailymotion and Youtube, with an upload date going back to April and May 2011 (6 years ago).

Many Gulf and Arab media outlets republished the video clip on a large scale against the background of the political crisis between Qatar and some other Gulf states as if it were the first time in which the clip is published and discovered. Many of these outlets did not refer to the date of recording the clip.

The republication of the clip contained accusations against Al Jazeera TV of playing roles against several Arab states that were mentioned in the video. It also included accusations against the Arab thinker, Azmi Bishara, of treason and implementing schemes against several Arab states, and underlined the existence of hostile attitudes by Al Jazeera TV toward Gulf Cooperation Council states and attempts to divide Arab ranks.

Ali Al Dhufairi posted a tweet on Twitter, stating that the clip dated back to 2011 in an episode that was devoted to the Syrian revolution.

The campaign against Al Jazeera TV comes in the wake of the severe tension in relations between Qatar and several Gulf states after statements attributed to the Emir of Qatar, Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani, which were denied later and attributed to "hacking of the Qatar News Agency." The statements prompted the Qatar News Agency to announce that its website had become inactive due to the hack. 

Amid the mutual accusations between the Gulf states, a Jordanian website published a report headlined "Bahrain Holds Al Jazeera Responsible for Tense Relations With Doha." The report contained an editorial that appeared on the first page of the Bahraini newspaper Al Ayam, which was published under the headline "Between Us and the Brothers in Qatar…Wickedness of Al Jazeera."

AKEED thinks that raising the question of the video clip again and handling it without referring to its date comes in the wake of Qatari-Gulf differences. The media is considered one of the tools that fuel this tension and conflict.

The publishing of the video clip is against the element of publishing at the time of the event. This could show that there is no real justification for republishing it except bad faith on the part of the media outlet. This is also against the Standards of Verification of the Credibility of Media Coverage, specifically the standard of clarity in presenting archival content and referring to its date, and not publishing old content and depicting it as new.