Doha: The Peninsula, Qatar’s leading English daily, celebrated yesterday at its office the success of its extensive and distinctive World Cup coverage — all 64 matches from November 20 to December 18 as well as daily cultural and entertainment activities.
Editor-in-Chief Dr. Khalid Mubarak Al-Shafi commended The Peninsula staff for their efforts and contributions during the World Cup, which made the newspaper’s reporting successful. The Editor-in-Chief stressed the importance of continued excellence and distinguished performance of the staff, benefiting from the experiences of covering international events such as the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 and other major sporting events. He further underlined the importance of a strong presence of the daily among its competitors.
The English daily newspaper offered outstanding coverage of the largest sporting event on and off the field, offering online and offline readers with real-time news. Its in-depth reporting across Qatar had kept the public in and outside the country updated and informed on the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022.
The sports desk worked tirelessly with the extensive coverage starting with the 10-day countdown, earlier than any other daily in Qatar. The coverage ranged from eight to 12 pages daily until the end of the World Cup. The reporters worked on exclusive stories, interviewing players and officials besides reporting matches covering pre and post match press conferences.
The infographics apprising the readers of detailed information of the global tournament was highly acknowledged along with the designs of pages in which the newspaper always takes the lead. The Peninsula’s headlines were regularly read during the live telecast at the venues before the matches, while stories were also being discussed at various news channels, including the BeIN Sports.
The local reporting team covered every important off the pitch aspect of the tournament. The extensive daily reports were on vast number of events, including fan festivals, activities held across the country, about facilities set up for fans — their experience and celebrations, events held for the World Cup by major institutions, legacy programmes as well as special events organised by the embassies.
All events were given extensive coverage with first hand reporting, exclusive interviews, photos and infographics. News articles, features, cartoons were also published during the tournament.
The online coverage of the tournament was adjudged the best among the competitors in Qatar as The Peninsula gave real-time, on-the-spot extensive coverage on all its social media channels and website.
All the matches were given massive attention with every on and off the field actions reported in real time up to the last day — the final match. Prior to the start of the tournament, the online section did a series of countdown articles and quiz contest (Predict and Win).
