Mahbub Ali, journalist and senior media executive

Yemen

Yamanat

Mohammed Shamsan

One of the leaders of journalistic and union work in Yemen and one of the most prominent journalists who has lived through five successive journalistic generations, all between journalistic writing and editing, working on radio and preparing and presenting on television. During his long journalistic experience, he rose from the lowest levels of journalistic work to the highest levels of leadership, reaching the position of advisor to the President of the Republic.

Mahboob Ali possesses many moral and leadership qualities, and his experience represents one of the most important Yemeni journalistic experiences due to the importance of the scenes and stations he passed through throughout his years of work in the field of journalism and media. He is also one of the leading figures who have had the most influence on the reality of journalism and media in Yemen over the past three decades.

The eminent professor Mahboob Ali grew up in the city of Aden and studied his first three years (primary, middle and high school) in what was called “Balqis College”. His relationship with journalism began when he was a high school student in 1968 AD, where he worked as a contributing editor of the official October 14 newspaper published in Aden. This period of his experience was also marked by many activities, since he contributed, among others, to the newspaper Al-Thaghr, published in Aden during those years, as well as to the Yemeni Youth Magazine. He also participated with great effort in the creation of the Journalists Association, which represented the first Yemeni journalists’ union entity in the late sixties of the last century. After graduating from high school, he traveled on a scholarship to Ukraine and studied journalism, from which he graduated in 1976 and received a master’s degree. He then returned to Aden to officially work at the October 14 newspaper in the political listening department, which was his first step in his official work in the journalism profession.

His period of work in this newspaper, which was the first official newspaper of what was called the “People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen”, witnessed great developments both professionally and administratively, as he began his professional life with enthusiasm and interaction, taking advantage of all the means of education, training and qualification available to him to develop his journalistic abilities and professional skills – particularly his work alongside a number of journalism giants and pioneers of that period who pioneers in establishing the journalistic working environment and who have been described as “the first generation”, such as: Abdul Bari Qasim, the first editor-in-chief. For the newspaper, Salem Bajamil, Saeed Al-Janahi, Salem Zein, Ahmed Salem Al-Hanaki, Abdullah Sharaf Saeed and others, then after them came the pioneers of the second generation, including: Ahmed Al-Abd Saad, Muhammad Makhshaf, Al-Qursi Abdul Rahim Salam, Marouf Haddad, Fadl Al-Naqib, Mahmoud Al-Hajj and others.

For him, the stage was the stage of development of professional abilities and personal creativity, and from them he acquired all the arts and specializations of journalistic and media work.

The journalistic experience of the prominent leader and journalist Mahboob Ali grew considerably and his name became one of the most important journalistic names in the south of the country during this period. His professional career within the newspaper 14 Octobre has seen increasing gradations in the journalistic career since the beginning of the 80s of the last century, as follows:

* Press editor at the listening service

* Press editor in the news department

* Press editor in the investigative journalism department

* Director of the Arab and international information department

*Deputy editor-in-chief of the newspaper

* Editor-in-chief of the newspaper.

While he was elected member of the General Secretariat of the Yemeni Journalists’ Union in the south of the country in the last years of the 1980s, and as Yemeni unity began to be achieved, he was at the forefront of the journalistic cadres creating the unified entity of the press union, the “Yemeni Journalists’ Union”. He was among the members of the new union council elected after the union’s first unification conference, then he was re-elected in the second election session and chaired the council’s international relations committee.

After achieving unity, the distinguished professor Mahboob Ali began his third journey in the world of journalism, and this step was one of the most important and notable stages of his experience, during which he held several leadership positions in journalism and gained great fame at the level of Yemen and the entire Arab region, where he held important journalistic and trade union positions, including:

* Editor-in-chief of Al-Thawri newspaper, spokesperson for the Yemeni Socialist Party

* Member of the Union Council of Journalists for two electoral mandates

* Head of the Yemeni Journalists’ Union, first session from 1999 to 2004

* Head of the Yemeni Journalists’ Union, second session, 2004 to 2008

* Vice President of the Yemeni Journalists’ Union during the two terms in which he served as President of the Journalists’ Union

* Regional coordinator of the Arab Group at the International Organization of Journalists

* Regional director of the organization for Arab countries

* Consultant to UNESCO to prepare seminars on pluralism, independence and independence of Arab media

* Advisor to the President of the Republic since 2012

The experience of the great journalist Mr. Mahboob Ali gained its importance during his long years of work, during which he lived with five successive generations of journalists, learning from some of them and benefiting from others who learned from him the arts and specializations of journalistic, radio and television work, until becoming one of the great titles of journalism and media in Yemen and the Arab region.

Yemen