Al -Jazeera doesn't give a damn

[Libaax-Sankataabte]

DOHA, Qatar -- It's a quiet Friday evening in the Middle East, and once again the lead story on Al-Jazeera's 10 p.m. news will be America's saber rattling against Iraq.

 

Judging from the languid pace in the newsroom just minutes before air time, there's nothing much fresh to report. The most interesting story tonight doesn't involve Saddam Hussein but Al-Jazeera itself, the Qatari-based satellite TV channel that is almost as adept at making news as it is in covering it.

 

Earlier in the week, Jordan recalled its ambassador to Qatar and shut the station's bureau in Amman, outraged by an Al-Jazeera talk show that insulted Jordan's royal family.

 

Now word has come that Jordan is refusing to let an Al-Jazeera correspondent leave the the country until he can prove he didn't continue working after the bureau was ordered shut.

 

"We're used to getting this reaction," says Mohamed Jasem Al-Ali, the channel's managing director.

 

"Every day, we hear some country is recalling an ambassador, shutting down our offices, not allowing our reporters in."

 

In the six years since it was founded on the motto "We get both sides of the story," Al-Jazeera has outraged almost every Arab government doing just that, giving critics nearly free rein to blast Arab regimes whose media are little more than propaganda machines.

 

And since the attacks on the United States, Al-Jazeera also has angered the Bush administration and others in the West, who accuse it of being a mouthpiece for Osama bin Laden and fanning anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism.

 

Yet no one can deny that Al-Jazeera has scored some impressive scoops. This month, it aired an exclusive interview from Pakistan with two men suspected of coordinating the Sept. 11 attacks. (One of the men, Ramzi Binalshibh, has since been captured and turned over to U.S. authorities for interrogation and a possible trial.)

 

Last October, Al-Jazeera was the only station broadcasting live from Afghanistan when the U.S.-led bombing began. And for better or worse, it has been the main vehicle through which bin Laden and his supporters have spoken to the world in the past year.

 

Thanks to its aggressive coverage, Al-Jazeera claims at least 35-million viewers in the Arab world and 175,000 who pay to watch it it on cable in North America. Its Web site gets 17-million hits a day.

 

"Al-Jazeera is undoubtedly a new trend in Arab media," says Roger Hardy, a Mideast specialist for the BBC World Service in London.

 

"And as far as I can tell, it's the TV station of choice for Arabs, whether you're a Palestinian in Gaza . . . or you're part of the Arab diaspora in Canada or America and you grind your teeth when you watch CNN because it doesn't give you what you want or you feel its biases are not the biases you share."

 

Whether Al-Jazeera is dangerously biased against the West has become a hot topic of debate since the terrorist attacks. Before Sept. 11, it was generally praised by Western governments and others as a breath of fresh air in the tightly controlled Arab media world. Since then, it has been viewed as a more sinister force.

 

"I think it's interesting to see how some people changed their opinion after Sept. 11 because these were the same people who admired it before," says Mohammed El-Nawawy, a former University of West Florida journalism professor and co-author of a book on Al-Jazeera.

 

The channel has had a particularly stormy relationship with the Bush administration. Aware of the channel's huge influence in the Arab world, a parade of officials including Secretary of State Colin Powell and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld appeared on Al-Jazeera in the days and weeks after Sept. 11.

 

Yet, Powell blasted the channel for airing "vitriolic, irresponsible statements" when it broadcast a videotape in which bin Laden praised the September attacks. And no one at Al-Jazeera thinks it was a mistake, as the U.S. military insists, when an American bomb nearly flattened the station's bureau in Kabul, Afghanistan, last fall and almost killed its correspondent.

 

"When the office was bombed, we got a strange answer from the Pentagon," says Al-Ali, the managing director. "They said they didn't know we had an office in Kabul -- it was a funny answer since the whole world knew we had an office in Kabul."

 

In contrast to the outrage it so often provokes, Al-Jazeera's studio in this little Persian Gulf nation looks about as bland as an insurance claims office.

 

Editors, reporters and technicians -- all in Western-style dress -- move unhurriedly around a newsroom about the size of a new car showroom. On one wall is a large map of the world flanked by 16 color monitors showing live feeds from CNN, the BBC and other Arab channels.

 

Nowhere to be seen, as a U.S. writer once reported, is a "huge, glamorous poster" of bin Laden.

 

"Even the emir of Qatar doesn't have a poster," says Gamel Rayan, one of Al-Jazeera's 16 news anchors.

 

Al-Jazeera prides itself on its independence from government control, even though it was Qatar's ruler, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, who founded the station in 1996 with a five-year, $150-million loan.

 

A progressive ruler who overthrew his father in a peaceful coup, Sheik Hamad has shaped Qatar into a modern and increasingly democratic nation. Its 650,000 people enjoy free education and health care, and a far higher standard of living than in neighboring Saudi Arabia.

 

Relations between the two countries are strained, with Al-Jazeera a major contributor to the tension. Much of the channel's original staff came from the BBC Arabic Service, after the BBC's partnership with a Saudi company collapsed in the mid '90s when the Saudis tried to censor a documentary on execution.

 

Dismayed by the lack of press freedom in the Arab world, Sheik Hamad abolished his country's Ministry of Information, the source of censorship in Saudi Arabia and most other Arab nations, and pledged to let Al-Jazeera "report the news as they see it."

 

"I believe criticism can be a good thing," the emir said in a 1997 speech, "and some discomfort for government officials is a small price to pay for this new freedom."

 

Al-Jazeera -- it means "the Peninsula" in Arabic -- quickly grabbed an audience with lively talk shows on which dissidents blasted the Saudis and other Arab regimes. No matter what it did, the channel seemed to offend one country or another: Iraq yanked the credentials of Al-Jazeera's Baghdad correspondent for stories considered too pro-Western. Kuwait refused to let Al-Jazeera put up a satellite link because it considered the channel's coverage too pro-Iraq.

 

And while it is sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, Al-Jazeera has angered all Arab governments by broadcasting interviews with Israeli leaders and showing Jewish victims of suicide attacks.

 

"I regret that Qatar is gaining enemies instead of friends, especially from Jazeera and what it broadcasts," Kuwait's foreign minister said.

 

But regardless of what their rulers thought, viewers were delighted to get something other than the usual pro-government twaddle.

 

Al-Jazeera was "the first of the Arab TV stations that broke the unwritten rule that thou does not criticize another Arab regime," says U.S. broadcast executive Norman J. Pattiz, mastermind of the Voice of America's new music-and-news format in the Mideast.

 

"They instantly became the populist station, if you will."

 

During Al-Jazeera's early years, the New York Times and other American news organizations did glowing stories. Then came Sept. 11 and "the Western media started paying more attention to it," Pattiz says. "On closer inspection it looked a lot less objective, at least in terms of the United States."

 

In a scathing piece in the New York Times last fall, Fouad Ajami, a Mideast expert at Johns Hopkins University, accused Al-Jazeera of glorifying the Taliban, romanticizing bin Laden and displaying a "virulent anti-American bias."

 

"It is," Ajami wrote, "a dangerous force and should be treated as such by Washington."

 

Some observers think Al-Jazeera's coverage assumed anti-Western overtones after Sept. 11, at least temporarily. The Bush administration and other critics "were turning the screws on a very vulnerable infant news organization, and rather than take the high road they went where the audience was -- they did what Fox did," says Michael Moran, a former BBC analyst.

 

"We pushed them into a situation where they either had to lose audience to kowtow to the U.S. or be defiant and build an audience that way. I don't think either one would have been good journalism."

 

Al-Jazeera denies the tone of its coverage has changed since Sept. 11 although it acknowledges it has always covered the news from an Arab/Muslim perspective just as CNN does from a Western perspective. ("We do not have any flags on our screen," its Washington, D.C., bureau chief pointedly noted, in reference to CNN's patriotic images of American flags flapping in the breeze.)

 

El-Nawawy, co-author of the book on Al Jazeera, thinks the channel is professional and balanced and does a good job by and large. However, as with any medium, he feels there is room for improvement.

 

"They take extremes," he says. "Like on a talk show about normalization of relations with Israel, one side is totally against and the other side is totally for. They should present more of the middle ground because there is a lot of middle ground in the Middle East."

 

The channel is often accused, too, of going light on Qatar while allowing heavy criticism of other Arab governments. One example: Al-Jazeera has been almost silent about the large U.S. military buildup at the Al-Udeid air base, expected to be a staging ground for an invasion of Iraq. The buildup is a sensitive subject with Qatar's government, which doesn't want to be seen as supporting an attack against another Arab nation.

 

Al-Jazeera "just needs to handle domestic issues as they handle other issues and other gulf states like Bahrain," which also has a big U.S. base, El-Nawawy says.

 

Al-Ali, the channel's managing editor, says Qatar doesn't warrant the amount of coverage devoted to Saudi Arabia or other countries because it is a much smaller nation. And even while Al-Jazeera was getting money from Sheik Hamad, there was no attempt to influence coverage, he says: "The Qatari government gives us full support to work as a professional channel."

 

Al-Jazeera no longer receives financial help from Qatar, Al-Ali says, and has become self-supporting from the sale of ads, footage and programming, plus contractual agreements with CNN and other networks. But it has yet to show a profit: Some advertisers have been frightened away because of pressure from the Saudis, who hate Al-Jazeera so much they have refused to let it open a bureau in their country.

 

Still, Al-Jazeera hopes to expand its budding empire, which includes 48 reporters in 30 nations. It wants to beef up its presence in New York, which is covered out of its Washington, D.C., bureau, and add correspondents in Jerusalem, Spain, South America and the Far East. It also is trying to get its bombed bureau in Kabul back to full speed.

 

And despite criticism from the West that it has been a mouthpiece for Osama bin Laden, Al-Jazeera will continue to vie with other TV networks for tapes from him or his supporters.

 

"Now the competition is very strong," Al-Ali says. "Bin Laden is a very important item in the news -- all of us are in competition."

 

Does he think bin Laden is alive? "That," he says, "I do not know."

[Haashim]

Libaax, Al-Jazeera is the only arab channel which don't begin JALAALATUL MALIK OR AMIIRIL BILAADIL MUFADA' OR JALAALATUL SULDAAN OR SIYAADATUL RAIIS OR ... it's news, it begin the hottest weather this from afghanistan or from palestine of from washinghton.

The arab tv viewers are tired a half an hour news about their leaders, a country like saudi arabia sometimes it takes an hour or more to cover the news about three rulers of saudia (fahad, abdalla and sultan) and their private and public visitings. so, the arab world shifted to ALJAZEERA to get an objective news, not to hear thanks to our king or leader this bridge was built (even though he was an abroad when this bridge was built), without him we couldn't achieve this progress etc,

AlJAZEERA angred all major arab goverments, because it diminished the role of the (un)beloved leaders, Arab Press minsters held meeting in CAIRO and asked qatar goverment officially to close down this channel accusing it to undermine our culture (dictatorshipness ), but qatar goverment refused that request saying this is a private channel and we have no any authority on it, (is that true ).

 

Anyhow, when qatar launched this channel there was a big disbute between qatar on one side and saudia and egypt on the other side, so initial motive was disbute between these countries but later it become the benefit of all arabs and the begining of arab freedom press.

 

..................

 

LACNADI HA KU DHACDO DAALIMIINTA IYO KUWA KABAHA U QAADABA, LAAKIIN XAAN NIRAAHNAA KUWA KA AAMUSAN OOD U MOODDO IN AFKA SHAROOTO LOOGA DHAJIYEY IYO KUWA MUGGA XERADOODA LA GAO UUN QAYLO AFKA KU SHUBTA.

[Valenteenah.]

Quite an interesting article. I enjoyed reading it. Would be nice if there were more stations like Al-Jazeera, wouldn't it?

[sMiLeY]

al-jazeera is way different than other news channels in the middle east........ it has the freedom of doing whatever which is the opposite of what's going on in the middle east. I love watching it whenever i'm at my aunt's house........ we can't get it for some reasons .

[Thinkerman]

Far Tooo Long

[StarGazer]

Good piece. Its strange how the US praised Al-Jazeera b4 the attacks (60 minutes for example), and all of a sudden Al-Jazeera became a household name. I love it how they uncover the dirt under the carpet. Now do they have it in subtitles?

[Haashim]

Yes, tamina like ASHARIICA WAL XAYAAT BY: SHEEKH YUSUF AL-QARADAWI and other programs like MINBARUL JAZEERA.

 

........................

 

LACNADI HA KU DHACDO DAALLIMIINTA IYO KUWA KABAHA U QAADABA, LAAKIIN MA LA YAABTEEN KUWA KA AAMUSAN IYO KUWA MARKII XERADOODA LA GALO UUN QAYLIYA.

[nuune]

i like watching aljazeera,to me,they are the best television station in the world!!

[Miskiin-Macruuf-Aqiyaar]

Salaan...

 

I kinda always liked Al-Jasiira. The first time I heard it was then back when the shirkii Jabuuti was in process. And one night they had an exclusive interview with C/qaasin Salaad Xasan.

 

And heey, you can learn Carabic by watching and listening it. A good Carabic may I add.

 

And if this unneeded war {God forbid} starts let by this dimwit mad cowboy, I hope Sadaam Xuseen would never let any other major media, especially Western ones, inside where he controls but only to Al-Jasiira, as the Talibans did. It will benifit the network, and we will at least see an honest reporting.

 

SHEEKH YUSUF AL-QARADAWI and other programs like MINBARUL JAZEERA.

Muraad, brother, Sheekh Yuusuf Qadraawi has his OWN show in that network? WooW! :cool:

[Thunder]

The aljazeera poicture looks very disturbing No women, no retards, no Africans.....!

[Macalin]

Nice

 

However they dont criticise qatari regime thazz not fair and balanced..but heyyy they do the job

[Haashim]

MMA, ALJAZEERA IS A MINBAR FOR THOSE WHO HAVE NO MINBAR .

 

LET THE PEOPLE SPEAK OUT, OR U WANT ONE HOUR NEWS ABOUT SUMUWA AMIIRIL BILAAD XAFIDAHULLAAH WA RACAAHA FII XILLIHI WA TIRXALIHI... AND FATAWA SUCH AS IT'S HARAAM TO DISOBEY OUR WALIYIL AMR TO OBEY WALIYILAMR MEANS TO OBEY ALLAH AND HIS MESSANGER ETC.

SOME PEOPLE MISSED THESE NEWS AND FATAWAS :cool: ALLAH (S.W.T) CREATES DIFFERENT PEOPLE.

 

SXB. NO MORE SLAVERY IN THE ARAB , IT'S FINISHED WHEN ALJAZEERA EMERGED :cool: , .

 

EVERYONE IS INVITED .

 

........................

 

LACNADI HA KU DHACDO DAALLIMIINTA IYO KUWA KABAHA U QAADABA, BALSE KA WARRAMA KUWA ISKA AAMUSAN IYO KUWA MARKA XERADOODA LA GALO UUN QAYLIYA.

[Sweeper]

same o stuff everyday on this channel!

[qatari_1979]

salam .al jazeera is the best network in the world cuz they belive on samthing call freedom speach[horeyat al tacbeer] and this natwork is not belong to the goverment of qatar so hey nice topic and all the way to the front al jazeera

[nuune]

nuune;520286 wrote:

i like watching aljazeera,to me,they are the best television station in the world!!

I take that back, after writing it more than 10 years ago.