Al Jazeera celebrates one million Facebook fans

Press release

Published May 1st, 2011 - 06:57 GMT

Al Jazeera's social media team celebrating with a specially branded cake

Al Jazeera is proud to announce that it has reached more than one million fans on its Arabic Facebook page making it the first and only Arabic news channel to do so.

Al Jazeera has been particularly praised for its social media efforts in recent months. The network's new media team has been seen as crucial in both newsgathering and news broadcasting during the Arab uprisings. Fans on Facebook and followers on Twitter have increased dramatically during this period.

Al Jazeera’s Head of Social Media, Riyaad Minty, stated: “This is a huge moment for us. The really wonderful thing has been that these numbers have been achieved organically till now – we have not invested huge amounts of money in building this fanbase.

“I can remember first launching the page in 2009, and watching it grow has been phenomenal. At that time it was seen as a somewhat strange move, but as we can see from this milestone, the page is central to our output.

“We want to continue to grow. Across all of our Facebook pages, including the English one, we have over two million fans in total. Our presences on YouTube are amongst the most popular channels there.”

Background Information

Al Jazeera Network

Al Jazeera started out more than fourteen years ago as the first independent Arabic news channel in the world dedicated to providing comprehensive television news and live debate for the Arab world. Al Jazeera was formally named the Al Jazeera Network in March 2006, transforming its operation into an international media corporation.

The Al Jazeera Network now consists of the flagship Al Jazeera Satellite (Arabic) channel, Al Jazeera English, Al Jazeera Documentary, Al Jazeera Sport, Al Jazeera.net (the English and Arabic web sites), the Al Jazeera Media Training and Development Center, the Al Jazeera Center for Studies, Al Jazeera Mubasher (Live), and Al Jazeera Mobile.

Al Jazeera English, the 24-hour English-language news and current affairs channel, is headquartered in Doha, the capital of Qatar. The organisation is the world's first global English language news channel to be headquartered in the Middle East. From this unique position, Al Jazeera English is destined to be the English-language channel of reference for Middle Eastern events, balancing the current typical information flow by reporting from the developing world back to the West and from the southern to the northern hemisphere. The channel aims to give voice to untold stories, promote debate, and challenge established perceptions.

With broadcasting centres in Doha, Kuala Lumpur, London and Washington DC and supporting bureaux worldwide, the channel will set the news agenda, bridging cultures and providing a unique grassroots perspective from under-reported regions around the world to a potential global audience of over one billion English speakers. The station broadcasts news, current affairs, features, analysis, documentaries, live debates, entertainment, business and sport.

Building on Al Jazeera Arabic channel's ground breaking developments in the Arab and Muslim world that have changed the face of news within the Middle East, Al Jazeera English is part of a growing network that is now extending this fresh perspective from regional to global through accurate, impartial and objective reporting.