It seems that Trump was not the only winner on the day of the American elections, as well as his voters. While he achieved what he aspired to ascend the throne of the American presidency and excel in the game of political elections, others had felt the euphoria of their professional work far from all of that. Another competition is taking place in the orbit of neutral media coverage, and a fierce battle to win the primacy of the news and the quality and quantity of content, especially between the Arab channels that entered the arena of competition with each other. The competition between the two news channels, Al-Arabiya and Al-Jazeera, was remarkable.
While Al-Jazeera contented itself with working in its internal studios inside and outside Doha, Al-Arabiya had gone out of the ordinary by using the water lake and the green areas adjacent to the MBC group headquarters, to prepare the largest open studio, which the channel allocated to cover the US elections, and surprised its followers by displaying pictures of the candidates on the wall of the group’s building, While the giant water lake, which covers an area of about 10,000 square meters, has turned into a screen that transports the viewer on a journey to the details of the American sovereign buildings. tirelessly to launch and secure coverage.
In conditions that Mahmoud Issa believes are exceptional and different from the atmosphere of closed studios, as the movement of technical crews over vast areas requires preparing them for a filming theater for many weeks, while equipping them with appropriate lighting requires hundreds of searchlights of different sizes in addition to preparing multiple platforms for the appearance of broadcasters who appear through various bulletins. On the shores of the lake.
Tweeters via Twitter shared pictures of this coverage with a comparison template between the two stations, and some of them said in various video clips that Al-Jazeera's current work is similar to Al-Arabiya's work in 2012, and that it did not go out of the ordinary as Al-Arabiya did, which seemed more diversified, attractive and up-to-date, especially the reports briefing all What is related to the elections and concerns the Arab citizen, in addition to a survey of the opinions of the Arab street conducted by Al-Arabiya correspondents from various Arab Middle Eastern countries (Palestine, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Palestinian refugees and Syrian refugees).
The event, which was produced by Al-Arabiya channel, was well received by the viewers, expressed by thousands of tweeters via social media, as Arab tweeters shared pictures and videos of the coverage, considering what the channel is doing as an advanced stage of Arab television work, and a precedent that comes from the city of Dubai, from which people are accustomed. This was confirmed by Nakhla Al-Hajj, Director of News and Programs at Al-Arabiya Channel, who considered that the channel is proud of its team, which is considered one of the most prominent media talents in the Arab region.
Okaz (Jeddah)