A day at a newsroom

December 8, 2006 at 7:21 pm · Filed under Pop Culture, Seriously

Yesterday, international French news channel France 24 saw its first bytes streaming live into the televisions of the world.

I’ve already written about the channel, so I won’t repeat myself, instead, I will share a little about my experience last weekend with the staff of the channel and various international bloggers who were also a part of the experience. I didn’t blog about the experience immediately because I was waiting for the channel to launch, and now, if you’re in the Middle East, Europe, Africa, or New York and Washington, D.C. you can actually watch the channel live.

The bloggers that were also there were: Andre Baron & Joanne Colan from RocketBoom (USA), Robert Basic (Germany), Luca Conti (Italy), Juan Varela (Spain), Gilles Klein (France), Jean-Michel Billaut, Roba Al-Assi (Jordan), Carl Jan Königel (Netherlands), Giuseppi Granieri (Italy), Luc Van Braekel (Belgium), Chukumeka Okafor (USA),…)

Our day started at around 1:30 where we were introduced to the channel by Mr. Stanislas Leridon, the Internet and New Media Director of France 24. Mr. Leridon said that at France 24, the Internet is at the heart of the channel strategy, due to its interactivity. You can read more about this by checking Mr. Leridon’s blogpost on the day here. Here are some pictures from the introductions:

paris france24 (9) paris france24 (8)

Afterwards, the group of 12 bloggers was split into teams of 2 and assigned a France 24 employee to show us around the facility. I was partnered up with German blogger Robert Basic and we were taken around and shown the different parts that make up a newsroom. Because the channel is trilingual (French, English, and Arabic), the staff was very diverse, and I met people from Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, and various other places from around the world. Here are some pictures from around the facility:

paris france24 (13)

(I love this picture, and if you zoom in to the screen, you can actually see me. The equipment used is just really cool)

paris france24 (147) paris france24 (27)
paris france24 (32) paris france24 (12)

It is cool seeing a newsroom in action, especially during the news briefs that occur live every 30 minutes. It’s just amazing how fast everything has to be, how a team of several people has to work together in perfect unison in order to broadcast so well. I never thought about how much work it takes to provide this information to viewers live. Here are some pictures of the newsroom as it worked live to provide the news briefs:

paris france24 (36) paris france24 (146)
paris france24 (21)

After that, we were taken to the room where interviews are done and each partner interviewed the other partner. Here’s the interview between Robert Basic and myself:


Robert Basic & Roba Al-Assi FRANCE 24
Uploaded by France24

(and there goes my broadcasting career… hey, at least now we know that I’d make a terrible news anchor.)

Our day was sealed by a French blogger meet-up arranged just for us (though it wasn’t as social as I would have liked due to the language barrier, moi no speak more than 24 words of French).

For more information (if you are interested), you can check out the blogs of the people there and do a search with the words “France 24″ (but unless you speak their languages, I don’t know how that would help, I’ve already tried Google Language tools and it doesn’t really work. Man, this post should have been in Arabic! Bas yalla shu bedna ne3mel…) The only thing you will find in English is a little video on Rocketboom that you can watch here.
You can also find a lot of pictures on the event here, courtesy of Emmanuel Vivier.






  • Nick Fraser

    I thought that was really interesting and I think you did brilliantly. It’s hard to do that kind of stuff and come across naturally, I think you pulled it off and what a brilliant experience for you.

    Was it my imagination or did you have a slight German accent at the start of the interview? Perhaps you’d picked it up off Herr Basic! :-)

  • Pingback: Ulysses Streitzüge » Blog Archive » Basicwatching

  • http://sileas.wordpress.com/ Izzi

    “You don’t have to kill me because you don’t agree with me”? What are you talking about? Where do you live? Afghanistan?

  • Rami

    Nice experience, I think you have (or trying to imitate) a strong British English accent and you speak fast! geezz I have to rewind sometimes… But nonetheless you’re articulate and very confidient… However I’d like to ask you this, do you REALLY beleive that the government in Jordan (or any other Arab country) will allow you to blog freely about anything pertaining for example to the political or even social failures of these governments.. I think you were not honest with the German guy when you affirmed that Arab governments won’t intervene with people thoughts! come on ( I know you said in the interview, that “we have to be careful about what we are talking about”, but this also contradicts your argument to that guy)!… I checked most of your blog and did not find any post or topic that would make the Jordanian government mad at you . I am not saying you or everyone should always try to provoke the government and just rant about their failures or bad deeds, but you cannot say that some blogger in Jordan can speak their minds about issues like for example secret political prisons in Jordan, human rights violations, cooperating on high levels with Israel, or …. that he/she won’t be put in jail and humiliated like what’s happening for Egyptian bloggers and others who live under Arab retarded regiems. Let’s be honest with the people in the world so they understand us better! and come on Roba, how many “liberal”
    Arabs are there?! yes there are a lot of Arabs who are not practicing religion the way it should be, but that doesn’t mean they are liberal, the majority of Arabs are governed by traditions more than religion, actually in most cases our Arabic traditions are more strict than Islam and in many cases violate Islamic rules. Don’t you agree? For example a guy that drinks wine and never entered a mosque and all the time hanging out in night clubs, but when he knows that his sister is dating some guy, he will kill her knowing that he’ll spend one month in jail, isn’t this what’s happening in Jordan ! so when you say not all Arabs are conservative, you’re right not all Arabs conservative, but those who are not conservative are 0.0001% and the majority of this tiny fraction been living in the united states or Europe.

    sorry for the long comment!.

  • http://iman-a.com Iman

    :)
    I’m not going to kill you, but I must say I don’t agree with how you presented your view. Yes, Arab presentation is not fair, and I’ll add nor accurate, especially as it pertains to the fanatical part..you say that the representation leans more towards the ‘fanatical,’ ‘religious,’ ‘conservative’…then, you go on to say that not all Arabs are ‘religious’, not all are ‘conservatives’…by saying this, you’re not only setting off the impression that there is something wrong with being ‘religious’ and/or ‘conservative’ but in a way you’re agreeing with it…there is nothing wrong with being ‘religious’, and there is nothing wrong with being ‘conservative’..and yes, just like we have the ‘religious’ and ‘conservative’, we have the ‘modern,’ ‘liberals,’ and ‘feminists.’ It’s a balance, or at least should be…But bottom line, being ‘religious’ and ‘conservative’ is not necessarily a bad thing…but how that is presented to the world is what makes the difference…associating the fanatical with the religious and conservative (what the media does) is absurd.

    I mean, being ‘conservative’ doesn’t necessarily mean being ‘religious’….

    and being religious doesn’t mean being fanatical… by presenting your ‘liberal modern’ view, you can make that distinction…and actually you had the opportunity to make the distinction in that short period of time, but you didn’t…

    I believe that we really have to choose our words carefully when we are presented with the opportunity to express our side/views to and be heard by the other side.

  • http://sileas.wordpress.com/ Izzi

    I second Iman, well done.

  • http://www.notizblogg.de/ulysses Ulysses’ Streitzüge

    I hope you were not worried by the above trackback in a strange language (Ulysses’ Streitzüge). Just wanted to notify Robert Basic about your common “TV” appearance as “Roba & Robert.” ;-) Good luck for your international blogging career!

  • http://www.intransito.biz/blog Luca

    Hi Roba, just found your blog thank to Luca Conti. I was in Jordan few weeks ago. Great time! And beautiful people. See you around…in the Blogosphere. Maas’salama. Luca

  • G.

    nice interview and very eloquent Roba

  • http://iman-a.com Iman

    However I’d like to ask you this, do you REALLY beleive that the government in Jordan (or any other Arab country) will allow you to blog freely about anything pertaining for example to the political or even social failures of these governments.. I think you were not honest with the German guy when you affirmed that Arab governments won’t intervene with people thoughts! come on ( I know you said in the interview, that “we have to be careful about what we are talking about”, but this also contradicts your argument to that guy)!… I checked most of your blog and did not find any post or topic that would make the Jordanian government mad at you . I am not saying you or everyone should always try to provoke the government and just rant about their failures or bad deeds, but you cannot say that some blogger in Jordan can speak their minds about issues like for example secret political prisons in Jordan, human rights violations, cooperating on high levels with Israel, or …. that he/she won’t be put in jail and humiliated like what’s happening for Egyptian bloggers and others who live under Arab retarded regiems.

    Well, she didn’t say that they can freely speak their mind… though she was quick to say ‘No no, no no no” when asked if the govt has tried to reach her regarding what she blogs about, she still made it clear that they have to be careful of what to say and what not to say from previous expriences .. so basically roba is saying that there wont be a need for govt interference because we know better!

  • sami

    Roba! We finally agree on something: you should NOT be a news anchor.

    haha, jk. good stuff.

  • http://21stcenturyshea.blogspot.com Peter S`

    Roba,

    Any idea why the camera work was so amateurish?

  • http://www.thescatterload.com Hamzeh N.

    Hey Roba, I just saw this. Good job! I think you were just a little nervous there, but that’s perfectly understandable with the background that an average Middle Eastern person would be coming from to put themselves out there for the world and to speak boldly about how they are expressing their global right of free speech. In light of our background, you did very well.