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SRMG to accelerate growth, transformation strategy through new digital approach

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Updated 17 January 2024
Arab News
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SRMG to accelerate growth, transformation strategy through new digital approach

  • SRMG also announced the appointment of several new assistant editors-in-chief and deputy editors-in-chief to sustain high-quality editorial processes
Updated 17 January 2024
Arab News

LONDON: SRMG, the largest integrated media group from the MENA region, has announced significant operational changes with the launch of a new exclusively digital approach for Arriyadiyah, AlEqtisadiah and Malayalam News, effective Jan. 19, 2024. Additionally, SRMG has announced the appointment of several new editors-in-chief, deputy editors-in-chief, and assistant editors-in-chief.  

This announcement aligns with SRMG’s digital transformation, growth and expansion strategy, demonstrating the Group’s commitment to nurturing the next generation of journalists and media professionals to meet the demands of audiences worldwide. This decision also reflects the significant shift in regional media consumption habits, particularly with the rising popularity of digital, social and audio-visual media platforms.   

These developments will optimize SRMG’s operational efficiency and support the production of innovative digital products across audio, video and written formats, which in turn will create new and diverse content offerings and marketing opportunities for advertisers across its digital platforms.  

Additionally, SRMG announced several appointments at the editor-in-chief level, empowering the next generation of media professionals and journalists. These individuals have demonstrated the skills and knowledge to meet the evolving demands of SRMG’s diverse audience across different generations, backgrounds and interests. The new appointments include:  

Ibrahim Hamidi has been appointed as Editor-in-Chief of Al Majalla, the Arab world’s leading current and political affairs magazine. With more than 22-years of experience, he has held various editorial positions at Al-Hayat Newspaper, including Director of the publication’s office in Damascus. Since 2017, he has served as a Senior Diplomatic Editor and Writer, covering Syrian affairs at Asharq Al-Awsat. Additionally, he oversaw the digital transformation of Al Majalla, leading to an impressive annual increase of 1704 percent in views.  

Fahim Al-Hamid has been appointed as the General Supervisor of Editorial Affairs for Malayalam News, Urdu News and Independent Urdu. With over three decades of experience in political journalism, Al-Hamid has actively covered Middle East and South Asian affairs, engaging with several political leaders and other prominent international figures.  

Mohammed Al-Bishi has been appointed as the Acting Editor-in-Chief of AlEqtisadiah, in addition to maintaining his current role as Managing Editor of Asharq Business with Bloomberg in Saudi Arabia. Al-Bishi has held a wide-range of editorial positions at Asharq Al-Awsat, AlEqtisadiah, Asharq Business with Bloomberg, which is ranked number one for digital economy news. His extensive economic and editorial expertise has played a pivotal role in the growth of Asharq Business with Bloomberg since its inception. This comes following the latest strategic decision from SRMG to restructure AlEqtisadiah under Asharq Business with Bloomberg, allowing it to focus on the most important global business and economic news and its impact on the region through in-depth high-quality analysis and coverage. 

SRMG has appointed several new assistant editors-in-chief and deputy editors-in-chief to sustain high-quality editorial processes, transfer knowledge and skills, and create innovative media content. The appointees are as follows:  

Mohamed Hani has been appointed as a Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Asharq Al-Awsat, the leading international Pan-Arab newspaper. Hani brings a wealth of experience, having served in various editorial positions at Al-Hayat and currently at Asharq Al-Awsat. He played a pivotal role in the recent revamp of Asharq Al-Awsat, overseeing the media title’s digital transformation and growth strategy by drawing on his extensive experience in modern content management systems.  

Zaid bin Kami has been appointed as a Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Asharq Al-Awsat. He previously served as Assistant Editor-in-Chief of AlEqtisadiah and Director of Economic News at Asharq Al-Awsat. Additionally, he worked as Managing Editor of Asharq Al-Awsat in Saudi Arabia from 2009-2014. He brings extensive experience in both print and video journalism, with a specialization in economics. He has actively participated in several international conferences, showcasing his broad and diverse expertise.  

Noor Nugali has been appointed as a Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Arab News, having progressed through various editorial assignments. Notably, Nugali played a significant role in the launch of the digital version of Arab News in French in 2020. She has also conducted prominent interviews with leading political figures, including US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba. Nugali has been instrumental in covering high-level conferences and has been part of the media delegation for His Royal Highness Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s international tours. 

May AlSharif has been appointed as the Assistant Editor-in-Chief of Independent Arabia, having held several editorial positions within the publication, including her most recent role as Supervising Manager of the Riyadh office. During her tenure in the content creation department, AlSharif effectively implemented various projects and documentaries. Additionally, she oversaw the media title’s social media accounts, contributing significantly to the initial stages of the publication’s establishment and development.  

Jomana R. Alrashid, CEO of SRMG, said: “We are proud of SRMG’s achievements over the past three years since launching our ambitious growth and transformation strategy. This strategy was developed to address growing audience demand for accurate, in-depth, credible and high-quality content, and our investments aim to further cement the Group’s rich journalistic history through modern, innovative products and services.” 

Further commenting on this important step in SRMG’s digital transformation, Alrashid stressed that the Group’s growth and expansion strategy is “focused on maintaining our leading role at the forefront of the regional media landscape and reaffirming our commitment to meet the needs of our diverse audiences, utilizing innovative digital platforms.”  

Topics: SRMG

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Tech-fueled misinformation distorts Iran-Israel fighting

Updated 23 June 2025
AFP
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Tech-fueled misinformation distorts Iran-Israel fighting

  • It is no surprise that as generative-AI tools continue to improve in photo-realism, they are being misused to spread misinformation
Updated 23 June 2025
AFP

WASHINGTON: AI deepfakes, video game footage passed off as real combat, and chatbot-generated falsehoods — such tech-enabled misinformation is distorting the Israel-Iran conflict, fueling a war of narratives across social media.
The information warfare unfolding alongside ground combat — sparked by Israel’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities and military leadership — underscores a digital crisis in the age of rapidly advancing AI tools that have blurred the lines between truth and fabrication.
The surge in wartime misinformation has exposed an urgent need for stronger detection tools, experts say, as major tech platforms have largely weakened safeguards by scaling back content moderation and reducing reliance on human fact-checkers.
After Iran struck Israel with barrages of missiles last week, AI-generated videos falsely claimed to show damage inflicted on Tel Aviv and Ben Gurion Airport.
The videos were widely shared across Facebook, Instagram and X.
Using a reverse image search, AFP’s fact-checkers found that the clips were originally posted by a TikTok account that produces AI-generated content.
There has been a “surge in generative AI misinformation, specifically related to the Iran-Israel conflict,” Ken Jon Miyachi, founder of the Austin-based firm BitMindAI, told AFP.
“These tools are being leveraged to manipulate public perception, often amplifying divisive or misleading narratives with unprecedented scale and sophistication.”
GetReal Security, a US company focused on detecting manipulated media including AI deepfakes, also identified a wave of fabricated videos related to the Israel-Iran conflict.
The company linked the visually compelling videos — depicting apocalyptic scenes of war-damaged Israeli aircraft and buildings as well as Iranian missiles mounted on a trailer — to Google’s Veo 3 AI generator, known for hyper-realistic visuals.
The Veo watermark is visible at the bottom of an online video posted by the news outlet Tehran Times, which claims to show “the moment an Iranian missile” struck Tel Aviv.
“It is no surprise that as generative-AI tools continue to improve in photo-realism, they are being misused to spread misinformation and sow confusion,” said Hany Farid, the co-founder of GetReal Security and a professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
Farid offered one tip to spot such deepfakes: the Veo 3 videos were normally eight seconds in length or a combination of clips of a similar duration.
“This eight-second limit obviously doesn’t prove a video is fake, but should be a good reason to give you pause and fact-check before you re-share,” he said.
The falsehoods are not confined to social media.
Disinformation watchdog NewsGuard has identified 51 websites that have advanced more than a dozen false claims — ranging from AI-generated photos purporting to show mass destruction in Tel Aviv to fabricated reports of Iran capturing Israeli pilots.
Sources spreading these false narratives include Iranian military-linked Telegram channels and state media sources affiliated with the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), sanctioned by the US Treasury Department, NewsGuard said.
“We’re seeing a flood of false claims and ordinary Iranians appear to be the core targeted audience,” McKenzie Sadeghi, a researcher with NewsGuard, told AFP.
Sadeghi described Iranian citizens as “trapped in a sealed information environment,” where state media outlets dominate in a chaotic attempt to “control the narrative.”
Iran itself claimed to be a victim of tech manipulation, with local media reporting that Israel briefly hacked a state television broadcast, airing footage of women’s protests and urging people to take to the streets.
Adding to the information chaos were online clips lifted from war-themed video games.
AFP’s fact-checkers identified one such clip posted on X, which falsely claimed to show an Israeli jet being shot down by Iran. The footage bore striking similarities to the military simulation game Arma 3.
Israel’s military has rejected Iranian media reports claiming its fighter jets were downed over Iran as “fake news.”
Chatbots such as xAI’s Grok, which online users are increasingly turning to for instant fact-checking, falsely identified some of the manipulated visuals as real, researchers said.
“This highlights a broader crisis in today’s online information landscape: the erosion of trust in digital content,” BitMindAI’s Miyachi said.
“There is an urgent need for better detection tools, media literacy, and platform accountability to safeguard the integrity of public discourse.”

Topics: Iran-Israel Conflict misinformation

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BBC shelves Gaza documentary over impartiality concerns, sparking online outrage

Updated 22 June 2025
Arab News
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BBC shelves Gaza documentary over impartiality concerns, sparking online outrage

  • The film, titled “Gaza: Doctors Under Attack” had been under editorial consideration by the broadcaster for several months.
Updated 22 June 2025
Arab News

LONDON: The BBC has decided not to air a highly anticipated documentary about medics in Gaza, citing concerns over maintaining its standards of impartiality amid the ongoing Israel-Gaza conflict.

The film, titled “Gaza: Doctors Under Attack” (also known as “Gaza: Medics Under Fire”), was produced by independent company Basement Films and had been under editorial consideration by the broadcaster for several months.

In a statement issued on June 20, the BBC said it had concluded that broadcasting the documentary “risked creating a perception of partiality that would not meet the BBC’s editorial standards.” The rights have since been returned to the filmmakers, allowing them to seek distribution elsewhere.

The decision comes in the wake of growing scrutiny over how the BBC is covering the Israel-Gaza war. Earlier this year, the broadcaster faced backlash after airing “Gaza: How to Survive a War Zone,” a short film narrated by a 13-year-old boy later revealed to be the son of a Hamas official. The segment triggered nearly 500 complaints, prompting an internal review and raising questions about vetting, translation accuracy, and the use of sources in conflict zones.

BBC insiders report that portions of “Gaza: Doctors Under Attack” had been considered for integration into existing news programming. However, concerns reportedly emerged during internal reviews that even limited broadcast could undermine the BBC’s reputation for neutrality, particularly given the politically charged context of the ongoing war.

Filmmaker Ben de Pear and journalist Ramita Navai, who worked on the documentary, have expressed disappointment at the decision. They argue that the film provided a necessary and unfiltered look at the conditions medical workers face in Gaza. “This is a documentary about doctors — about the reality of trying to save lives under bombardment,” said Navai. “To shelve this is to silence those voices.”

Critics of the BBC’s decision have been vocal on social media and online forums, accusing the broadcaster of yielding to political pressure and censoring Palestinian perspectives. One commenter wrote, “Sorry, supporters of the Israeli government would get very offended if we demonstrated the consequences … so we shelved it.” Others, however, defended the move, citing the importance of neutrality in public service broadcasting.

A BBC spokesperson said the decision was made independently of political influence and reflected long-standing editorial guidelines. “We are committed to reporting the Israel-Gaza conflict with accuracy and fairness. In this case, we concluded the content, in its current form, could compromise audience trust.”

With the rights now returned, Basement Films is expected to seek other avenues for release. Whether the documentary will reach the public via another broadcaster or platform remains to be seen.

Topics: War on Gaza Israel Palestine Gaza Hamas BBC

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Iran’s Internet blackout leaves public in dark, creates uneven picture of war with Israel

Updated 20 June 2025
AP
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Iran’s Internet blackout leaves public in dark, creates uneven picture of war with Israel

  • Civilians are left unaware of when and where Israel will strike next, despite Israeli forces issuing warnings
  • Activists see it as a form of psychological warfare
Updated 20 June 2025
AP

DUBAI: As the war between Israel and Iran hits the one-week mark, Iranians have spent nearly half of the conflict in a near-communication blackout, unable to connect not only with the outside world but also with their neighbors and loved ones across the country.
Civilians are left unaware of when and where Israel will strike next, despite Israeli forces issuing warnings through their Persian-language online channels. When the missiles land, disconnected phone and web services mean not knowing for hours or days if their family or friends are among the victims. That’s left many scrambling on various social media apps to see what’s happening — again, only a glimpse of life able to reach the Internet in a nation of over 80 million people.
Activists see it as a form of psychological warfare for a nation all-too familiar with state information controls and targeted Internet shutdowns during protests and unrest.
“The Iranian regime controls the information sphere really, really tightly,” Marwa Fatafta, the Berlin-based policy and advocacy director for digital rights group Access Now, said in an interview with The Associated Press. “We know why the Iranian regime shuts down. It wants to control information. So their goal is quite clear.”
War with Israel tightens information space
But this time, it’s happening during a deadly conflict that erupted on June 13 with Israeli airstrikes targeting nuclear and military sites, top generals and nuclear scientists. At least 657 people, including 263 civilians, have been killed in Iran and more than 2,000 wounded, according to a Washington-based group called Human Rights Activists.
Iran has retaliated by firing 450 missiles and 1,000 drones at Israel, according to Israeli military estimates. Most have been shot down by Israel’s multitiered air defenses, but at least 24 people in Israel have been killed and hundreds others wounded. Guidance from Israeli authorities, as well as round-the-clock news broadcasts, flows freely and consistently to Israeli citizens, creating in the last seven days an uneven picture of the death and destruction brought by the war.
The Iranian government contended Friday that it was Israel who was “waging a war on truth and human conscience.” In a post on X, a social media platform blocked for many of its citizens, Iran’s Foreign Ministry asserted Israel banned foreign media from covering missile strikes.
The statement added that Iran would organize “global press tours to expose Israel’s war crimes” in the country. Iran is one of the world’s top jailer of journalists, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, and in the best of times, reporters face strict restrictions.
Internet-access advocacy group NetBlocks.org reported on Friday that Iran had been disconnected from the global Internet for 36 hours, with its live metrics showing that national connectivity remained at only a few percentage points of normal levels. The group said a handful of users have been able to maintain connectivity through virtual private networks.
Few avenues exist to get information
Those lucky few have become lifelines for Iranians left in the dark. In recent days, those who have gained access to mobile Internet for a limited time describe using that fleeting opportunity to make calls on behalf of others, checking in on elderly parents and grandparents, and locating those who have fled Tehran.
The only access to information Iranians do have is limited to websites in the Islamic Republic. Meanwhile, Iran’s state-run television and radio stations offer irregular updates on what’s happening inside the country, instead focusing their time on the damage wrought by their strikes on Israel.
The lack of information going in or out of Iran is stunning, considering that the advancement of technology in recent decades has only brought far-flung conflicts in Ukraine, the Gaza Strip and elsewhere directly to a person’s phone anywhere in the world.
That direct line has been seen by experts as a powerful tool to shift public opinion about any ongoing conflict and potentially force the international community to take a side. It has also turned into real action from world leaders under public and online pressure to act or use their power to bring an end to the fighting.
But Mehdi Yahyanejad, a key figure in promoting Internet freedom in Iran, said that the Islamic Republic is seeking to “purport an image” of strength, one that depicts only the narrative that Israel is being destroyed by sophisticated Iranian weapons that include ballistic missiles with multiple warheads.
“I think most likely they’re just afraid of the Internet getting used to cause mass unrest in the next phase of whatever is happening,” Yahayanejad said. “I mean, some of it could be, of course, planned by the Israelis through their agents on the ground, and some of this could be just a spontaneous unrest by the population once they figure out that the Iranian government is badly weakened.

Topics: Iran-Israel Conflict

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BBC threatens legal action against AI startup Perplexity over content scraping

Updated 20 June 2025
Reuters
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BBC threatens legal action against AI startup Perplexity over content scraping

  • Perplexity has faced accusations from media organizations, including Forbes and Wired, for plagiarizing their content
Updated 20 June 2025
Reuters

LONDON: The BBC has threatened legal action against Perplexity, accusing the AI startup of training its “default AI model” using BBC content, the Financial Times reported on Friday, making the British broadcaster the latest news organisation to accuse the AI firm of content scraping.

The BBC may seek an injunction unless Perplexity stops scraping its content, deletes existing copies used to train its AI systems, and submits “a proposal for financial compensation” for the alleged misuse of its intellectual property, FT said, citing a letter sent to Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas.

The broadcaster confirmed the FT report on Friday.

Perplexity has faced accusations from media organizations, including Forbes and Wired, for plagiarizing their content but has since launched a revenue-sharing program to address publisher concerns.

Last October, the New York Times sent it a “cease and desist” notice, demanding the firm stop using the newspaper’s content for generative AI purposes.

Since the introduction of ChatGPT, publishers have raised alarms about chatbots that comb the internet to find information and create paragraph summaries for users.

The BBC said that parts of its content had been reproduced verbatim by Perplexity and that links to the BBC website have appeared in search results, according to the FT report.

Perplexity called the BBC’s claims “manipulative and opportunistic” in a statement to Reuters, adding that the broadcaster had “a fundamental misunderstanding of technology, the internet and intellectual property law.”

Perplexity provides information by searching the internet, similar to ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini, and is backed by Amazon.com (AMZN.O) founder Jeff Bezos, AI giant Nvidia (NVDA.O), and Japan’s SoftBank Group (9984.T).

The startup is in advanced talks to raise $500 million in a funding round that would value it at $14 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported last month.

Topics: BBC

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Streaming platform Deezer starts flagging AI-generated music

Updated 20 June 2025
AFP
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Streaming platform Deezer starts flagging AI-generated music

  • French streaming service Deezer is now alerting users when they come across music identified as completely generated by artificial intelligence, the company told AFP on Friday
Updated 20 June 2025
AFP

PARIS: French streaming service Deezer is now alerting users when they come across music identified as completely generated by artificial intelligence, the company told AFP on Friday in what it called a global first.
The announcement by chief executive Alexis Lanternier follows repeated statements from the platform that a torrent of AI-generated tracks is being uploaded daily — a challenge Deezer shares with other streaming services including Swedish heavyweight Spotify.
Deezer said in January that it was receiving uploads of 10,000 AI tracks a day, doubling to over 20,000 in an April statement — or around 18 percent of all music added to the platform.
The company “wants to make sure that royalties supposed to go to artists aren’t being taken away” by tracks generated from a brief text prompt typed into a music generator like Suno or Udio, Lanternier said.
AI tracks are not being removed from Deezer’s library, but instead are demonetised to avoid unfairly reducing human musicians’ royalties.
Albums containing tracks suspected of being created in this way are now flagged with a notice reading “content generated by AI,” a move Deezer says is a global first for a streaming service.
Lanternier said Deezer’s home-grown detection tool was able to spot markers of AI provenance with 98 percent accuracy.
“An audio signal is an extremely complex bundle of information. When AI algorithms generate a new song, there are little sounds that only they make which give them away... that we’re able to spot,” he said.
“It’s not audible to the human ear, but it’s visible in the audio signal.”
With 9.7 million subscribers worldwide, most of them in France, Deezer is a relative minnow compared to Spotify, which has 268 million.
The Swedish firm in January signed a deal supposed to better remunerate artists and other rights holders with the world’s biggest label, Universal Music Group.
But Spotify has not taken the same path as Deezer of demonetising AI content.
It has pointed to the lack of a clear definition for completely AI-generated audio, as well as any legal framework setting it apart from human-created works.

Topics: deezer AI

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