Apr 12 2010 |
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Maktoob lands el Sokkari from BBC Arabic service
The head of the BBC Arabic service has resigned to take up a new role at the Middle East's largest Web business.Hosam el Sokkari, an Egyptian journalist and broadcaster, will take a leadership position at the Middle East unit of Yahoo, which acquired Jordan's Maktoob Web portal, the region's largest, for US$164 million (Dh602.3m) last year.
Mr el Sokkari, the first Arab to lead the BBC Arabic service since its launch in 1938, said he would oversee the content and audience strategy of Yahoo in the region and use the Web to "change the concept of broadcasting".
Peter Horrocks, the director of the BBC World Service, said Mr el Sokkari's early and consistent focus on internet journalism "has been a hallmark of his career". He "has been at the leading edge of innovation in journalism for the Arab world".
At the BBC Arabic service, which broadcasts television and radio channels and operates a website, Mr el Sokkari was long an advocate of the new opportunities the internet creates for the traditional media industry.
"I have tried to push to boundaries, to bridge the gap between what I believe are two different segregated environments," he said. "I think there can be quite a strong merger between the two realms, we can see it now from the consumer end, but we don't see it a lot from the production end. I think there is still a lot to do."
Prior to its acquisition by Yahoo,
Maktoob
made considerable investments in creating news content, launching its own news websites and hiring journalists in the region.
The site was started as an Arabic-language e-mail service in 2000 and now has more than 15 million users each month.
By Keach Hagey and Tom Gara
© The National 2010
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