Even today, there are old-timers, who talk about the sense of anticipation in town
as everybody waited for the first issue of Qatar’s own English-language newspaper
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Gulf Times was born almost by accident, from the germ of an idea in one man’s mind.
In the late 1970s, Qatar was still savouring its new-found sense of freedom and hope following independence. What the West saw as the “oil shock” of 1974 was a boon for the Gulf states, bringing an unexpected flood of money hot on the heels of the British withdrawal.
Anything seemed possible — and almost everything was waiting to be built.
Yousuf Kassem Darwish was an energetic man in a land full of hope. Blessed with an open and inquiring mind and born into a distinguished family, his talents had already won recognition and he had been honoured with a senior position on the Advisory Council.
Fired with enthusiasm for politics and fascinated by radio, Yousuf had set up Qatar’s first radio transmitter, which was installed in the Grand Mosque in the early 60s and was used to broadcast the Friday prayer and official announcements each week.
The equipment is displayed today in the entrance hall at Qatar Broadcasting Corporation, where visitors can see it.
His interest in communications was matched by an acute awareness of the misconceptions about Arabs and Islam in the West.
Yousuf realised that an English-language newspaper would offer the means of reaching out to the wider world — and the audience was already available in Qatar.
“At that time there were ever so many Europeans and ever so many other people who couldn’t read their own news.
The Indians were waiting for their newspapers to arrive and the British were waiting for theirs,” he said.
“But we could show them our news, our just causes as Qataris, as Arabs, as Muslims — so why didn’t we tell them about our causes?
“Most people, all over the world, don’t have the right view about the Arabs, about Muslims. We have our shortcomings, but we have our own things to be credited with.
“I thought: ‘Why don’t we have an English newspaper? Then all the people who are here can act as our ambassadors to the rest of the world.’
“It is better for expatriates to hear our news from us than from their own newspapers. Then, if they move from here they will tell others about us and about our life. So that was the idea.”
Yousuf had already set up This is Qatar magazine and officials had been very happy with the country’s first English-language magazine. When he suggested to the Ministry of Information that an English newspaper was also possible, the proposal was well-received.
“After 10 days, they rang up and said the idea was excellent. It had been discussed at a high level in the government — and I was the man who had to take the licence and publish the paper!”
But that had not been Yousuf’s idea at all: he had thinking abstractly, imagined the paper as a government project, to be published by the Information Ministry.
“I told them I wasn’t a journalist but they said they didn’t want the paper to be seen as a government project and I was the man who could help in this. And, really, I was happy.”
The first step was to guarantee the future of the project by setting up an organisation since a one-man show would be at risk if anything happened to the founder.
“As an organisation, it would grow. It would be like a tent, not just with a pole but with support at each corner to make it strong.”
Yousuf drew up a list of leading citizens he wanted as fellow owners. “My friends and colleagues agreed and it was accepted” — and so the Gulf Publishing and Printing Organisation was born.
Next came the task of finding staff: “I spent half my vacation that summer looking for staff in Britain.” Among them was Darlington-based journalist Brian Nicholls, who became the founding editor of Gulf Times and was to forge an enduring and fruitful friendship with Yousuf. Other staff were recruited from Britain and the subcontinent.
An office was found in Gulf Street, not far from Mannai Roundabout, computer typesetting equipment was installed and a paste-up room was established.
In those days, newspapers were made by printing out stories on sheets of photographic paper, which were then cut up and pasted, story by story, into a blank page. The completed page was photographed and a plate was made from the negative.
“There was no management department then,” Yousuf said. “It was all under me, as managing director, and Brian.”
There was no press, either; so once the pages had been stuck together, they were taken in a folder to the Doha Printing Press where negatives were made and from there to the press itself at Rayyan, for plate-making and printing.
The early editions of Gulf Times were printed and folded a sheet at a time and the sheets had to be inserted by hand to make the newspaper. That is an onerous task, but it is one that any newspaperman will willingly undertake to launch his new baby.
“I remember that first day,” said Yousuf. “Printing the first issue was a very big moment in my life. I can’t remember another day that was as great as that. We had worked all through the previous day and then through the night at the press.
“By 6am, every one of us took the first issue, to the ministry, to the people, to the officials, to the street.
It wasn’t until the afternoon that we went to sleep.
“I was really very proud, not because we are the owners, but because we did something big for the State of Qatar and for the people who live with us here in Qatar.”
It was a big day not just for Yousuf and the small band of Gulf Times staff, but also for the public. Even today, there are old-timers among the expat community who talk about the sense of anticipation there was in town as everybody waited for the first issue of Qatar’s own English-language newspaper.
It was Yousuf who coined the name Gulf Times — and the name itself is a political statement. “I didn’t use ‘Qatar’, because I know that one day the Gulf states will be united and there will be a place for the paper in all of them, so I called it Gulf Times.”
For more than two years, Gulf Times was a weekly publication and, during that time, a printing press was installed and our Arabic sister-paper, Arrayah was brought out, with one of the company’s directors Nasser al-Othman as its first editor.
Publishing separate papers in Arabic and English made economic sense, because the capital costs for machinery and the wage-costs for administrative and production staff could be shared between the two.
But Yousuf’s ambitions were still not fulfilled. “After some time, I suggested that we should have a daily. At first, this was rejected by the Ministry of Information, they were afraid it would destroy the weekly, but we promised not to kill it off.”
The officials remained sceptical, wondering if Gulf Times could find enough news for a daily edition, but Yousuf assured them that if the project didn’t work out the daily could be dropped after three or four months and they eventually gave their consent.
That was in 1981, and the daily Gulf Times has appeared since then without a break.
Throughout the time Yousuf was in charge of the newspapers, he always used the title “managing director” rather than editor-in-chief “because I am not a journalist by training,” he said. “I might be a manager in a hospital, but that wouldn’t entitle me to call myself a doctor.”
But despite his refusal to accept the title, 10 years spent working every night at Gulf Times, providing ideas for the Viewpoint column and working closely with leader-writer and translator Ismail Harb and Brian Nicholls have left him talking like a seasoned editor.
“I remember once, we had finished the paper and I was driving home at 2am listening to Saudi radio, when they announced that the oil minister Sheikh Yamani had been sacked. It was no small story!”
“I rang Brian and Ismail from my car and we all went back to the office.”
There was nothing about it on Reuters, so I put it in writing, that we had heard it from Saudi radio, and the moment we finished remaking the page, the news agencies started clattering out the story.”
A journalist’s life is full of triumphs and disasters: delight over “scooping” the opposition and dismay over mistakes which slip through and end up in the readers’ hands.
Despite Qatar being less open then than it is now, Gulf Times was still able to get some good scoops.
“Once we heard that a very senior appointment had been made at QGPC, but we needed confirmation, we couldn’t print it without. It was after midnight, but I rang the man who we thought was being appointed and said: ‘Mabrook.’
“He said: ‘Mabrook? For what?’, and I said ‘The new job, of course.’
“Then he said nothing and I’d got him. That was the confirmation. In our society, when a young girl is asked if she wants to marry a man, she can say ‘No’, and that’s that. But if she keeps quiet, it means she accepts.
“The next day, somebody asked a high official if they should announce the appointment at QGPC. He said: ‘Why bother?’ and they told him ‘Because it’s already been announced in this morning’s Gulf Times’.”
Probing events in the government or even taking a political stand on Arab issues could draw an angry reaction from officials or ambassadors. “We got into so many disputes, but always, within a week or so, we would solve them,” Yousuf said.
From the very beginning, Brian and Yousuf had a policy — still followed by Gulf Times today — that if the paper made a factual mistake it would correct it and if a reader objected to a point of view, he could write a letter for publication.
On one occasion, Gulf Times even printed an allegation that the paper was “anti-Islamic” for stating (correctly) that there were some non-Muslim citizens of Turkey. “That is democracy and freedom of opinion.”
Yousuf’s years with Gulf Times coincided almost exactly with the Iran-Iraq war. “That was very, very hard for us. For years, we said in Viewpoint that this war should not be in this place at this time, when we are busy with other issues, especially in Palestine.
“The other tragedy was the civil war in Lebanon. For years, the Lebanese had been united, they had dozens of political parties but they were all brothers. Then, because of some personal differences, they invited their enemy in. These were the things which made our hearts bleed.”
In 1988, Yousuf left the paper. “I had spent more than 10 years with Gulf Times. I was also a member of the Advisory Council. I worked very long days and at night I was far from my family. Also, I had to think of my age and my health.”
Two years later, Brian Nicholls resigned as editor and returned to England, much to Yousuf’s regret. But between them, they had laid foundations on which Gulf Times would grow and flourish.