The Launch Generation
Founders, first newsroom, first transmission — the people who made an Arab global network exist at all.
Al Jazeera Alumni
A private network for the people who built Al Jazeera — to find each other again, to put on the record how it was actually done, and to be reachable by whoever tries to build something like it next.
Why now
The people who put Al Jazeera on air in 1996 were in their thirties and forties. In November 2026 they are in their sixties and seventies. Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, who started it, died this July — four months short of the anniversary of the thing he founded.
The archive holds fifty thousand hours of what was broadcast. It holds almost nothing about how any of it was decided: how the first bureau was actually opened, what was argued about in the week before Al Jazeera English went on air, what it cost internally to keep broadcasting through the blockade. That sits in a few hundred heads, most of them no longer in the building, and it has no other copy.
Four generations
This is not only for the class of 1996. Every era solved a problem the next one inherited.
Founders, first newsroom, first transmission — the people who made an Arab global network exist at all.
International bureaus, war coverage, Al Jazeera English, the build-out of a worldwide operation.
Arab Spring, AJ+, social-first news, the shift from broadcast to platform.
Al Jazeera 360, archive at scale, AI-assisted production and new distribution.
Six ways to take part
Most members start with one and add another later. None of them requires you to be looking for anything.
Add your name, your period and your function to the founding directory.
One profile. Thirty minutes.Record one interview about something you built or lived through.
One hour, once.Take occasional paid advisory calls in your area of expertise.
You set the availability.Join an assembled team on a commissioned build.
By mandate, when it suits you.Guide someone earlier in the career you already had.
A few hours a quarter.Name the people who must be in this network, and open the door.
Introductions only.What we promise you
This is the part that matters most, and it is not negotiable.
What we are asking for
Join the founding directory: your period, your function, what you built. Thirty minutes.
Sit for one recorded conversation about something you made happen. It becomes part of the archive.
Name three people who must be in this network — and, if you can, make the introduction.
The founding directory
Members who asked to be listed publicly. Everyone else is here too, privately.
No names yet. The first will appear here as members are approved.
Add your name
Five questions, about ten minutes. Nothing you write here is published — it goes to the directory, private by default.
Al Jazeera Alumni is an independent initiative created by former colleagues. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or a property of Al Jazeera Media Network. The Al Jazeera name is used here only to describe who this community is for. If the network chooses to support the project, that relationship will be stated openly on this page.
If you helped build any of this, you belong here — and so do the people you worked with. Please pass the link on.