Al Jazeera scoops another major PR award

Al Jazeera today won the Global SABRE for its FreeAJStaff campaign. This follows the Gold awards won earlier this year at both the EMEA and Asia-Pacific SABRE awards.  The campaign was designed to secure the release of Peter Greste, Baher Mohamed, Mohamed Fahmy, Mohamed Bader, and Abdullah Elshamy, highlighting the fact that ‘journalism is not a crime’ and for press freedom. The Global SABRE Awards, organized by leading PR publication The Holmes Report, will award the #FreeAJStaff campaign at the Global PR Summit in Miami later in October.

There were 5,000 entries in this year’s competition from more than 60 countries, representing best practice in categories ranging from social media to social responsibility, and from public affairs to employee communications. 

The judging panels looked at how the situation went from being a story about journalists arrested in Egypt, to being the biggest press freedom campaign in the history of the news media.

Abdulla AlNajjar, Executive Director of Global Brand and Communications, said:

“This global recognition by one of the PR industry’s leading organisations is very exciting. We were faced with a very difficult situation with the unwarranted arrest of our journalists in Egypt and this campaign rose to the challenge. This campaign was comprehensive: the cultivation of a hashtag that went viral; multiple events in all the continents of the world; effective crisis communications; the gathering together of the entire news industry; and support from NGOs, and world leaders. All of this was in the cause of supporting press freedom.  Thankfully our journalists are now free.”

Greste, Mohamed and Fahmy were arrested on 29th December 2013, and were incarcerated for more than 400 days. They were unjustly convicted in June 2014 after a trial that prompted outrage across the world. The verdict was thrown out on appeal, with Mohamed and Fahmy released on bail in February 2015 before a retrial. Greste was deported that same month on presidential order. They were subsequently sentenced to jail in August 2015 but Baher and Mohamed were recently released after being given a presidential pardon.

Earlier this year Al Jazeera was also recognized by PRWeek Global Awards and ‘Highly Commended’ in their Crisis & Issues category for the same campaign.