Following the lead of France 24, the BBC and Deutsche Welle, the EuroNews television network will soon begin broadcasting in Arabic. From 12 July, Arab audiences will be able to access the network's programming already broadcast in seven other European languages 24 hours a day. Seventeen journalists from across the Arab world have been enlisted for the five-million-euro-a-year venture - a European Union initiative - following a call for tenders to TV networks by Brussels. APN spoke to Luis Rivas, director of news programming for the France-based international TV network, just weeks before the launch of the Arabic language channel.

APN: What made you decide to launch an Arabic language programme?
Luis Rivas: Today any television channel that prides itself on being an international news network wants to broadcast in Arabic. This is especially the case for EuroNews which simulcasts in seven languages already (English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Russian). We consider Arabic to be a European language because of the large number of Arabic speakers living on the continent. So we want to make our news programmes available to the Arab world but also to Arabic-speaking European residents.
We are bound by contract to broadcast from the Maghreb to the Mashreq [eastern Arab world] and as far as the Gulf states. And we are offering our Arabic-speaking viewers exactly the same programming that we broadcast in the seven other languages. But it will not be a translation. The way it works is that the journalists from the seven - and now eight, with Arabic - EuroNews departments meet and decide together which stories they will cover and from what angle. Then they go off and each one produces his own report. So there won't be programming specific to Arabic countries. All of our viewers get the same programmes, the same topics, but in different languages.

APN: So the launch of Arabic language programming does not mean a greater focus on news from the Arab world?
LR: Not really, no. We are not changing our editorial focus by deciding to offer a new language of broadcast any more than we shifted our focus towards Russia after adding a Russian language channel. That said, having Arabic-speaking journalists as part of our editorial team will be a tremendous resource and will naturally make us more sensitive to issues that we might previously have ignored. Having a team of journalists from so many different countries will obviously allow us to broaden our spectrum of news stories as well as to conduct more interviews in Arabic. So, although our editorial line will not change, our editorial product will naturally be enhanced as a result. And working with such a culturally diverse team will help us to avoid the pitfalls of stereotype that so many national media outlets fall prey to.

APN: EuroNews' previous attempt at Arabic language broadcasting back in 1999 ended in failure. What lessons have you learned from that experience?
LR: That project failed and EuroNews was forced to end its Arabic programming after the European Commission pulled the plug on its funding. I think the style was perhaps too formal and not objective enough, to the extent that Arab audiences preferred to tune into the French programme. It is important that the same standards be applied evenly across the board with respect to free expression, without censorship or embellishment from one language to another.

APN: How will you differentiate yourself in the ever-saturating market of Arabic-language news?
LR: We had an audience in the Arab world long before deciding to broadcast in Arabic. Launching an Arabic language channel will allow us to increase that audience share. Our editorial position differs from that of Deutsche Welle or the BBC or France 24, which report on world events from a national perspective - German or English or French - and do not attempt to hide it. EuroNews, on the contrary, is not a national network but an international one. So we are not seen as a national news channel that dispenses its opinion on world events but as a channel that offers objective and balanced coverage. In fact, there are no editorial writers on our team, a detail which sets us apart in our field and accounts in large part for our success.
I'll share with you a couple of anecdotes that will give you an idea of our popularity in the Arab world... When Giuliana Sgrena, an Italian journalist from the Il Manifesto newspaper kidnapped in Iraq back in 2005, was freed, she told of how she was able to follow the reaction to her kidnapping around the world because her kidnappers watched EuroNews. In the 2006 Lebanese film Sous les bombes (Under Bomb Fire), directed by Philippe Aractingi and shot during the fighting that summer, there's a scene in which the lead characters tune into EuroNews. And finally, it was on EuroNews that the parents of the Palestinian doctor detained in Libya witnessed their son being freed.