NEW WAY OF TELLING GLOBAL NEWS
            An Analytical look at Al-Jazeera News Network and its Impact on Global News 

By: Alex Redd
Madison, WI
May 5, 2003


The Arab news network, Al-Jazeera,  is a new phenomenon that has generated many concerns and attention from western media outlets, particularly in the area of news dissemination through modern technology. Characterized as an alternative news media in the eyes of the Arab world, the network has drawn its strength of growing audience through out the Arab world, the United States and the world over for its style of news gathering and presentation. Most of its audiences in the Arab world dubbed the network as the new CNN that provides fair and balanced news, information, education and entertainment at all levels. Why is it that Al-Jazeera commands so much attention? Is the news network a responsible alternative news media or a viable entity in the Arab world? Does the network enhance global perspective in shaping news? 


This essay will look at Al-Jazeera as an alternative responsible news network with analysis drawn from its performance since the inception of the September 11 and the American government unwavering war on terrorism. Al-Jazeera, I would agree, is indeed a responsible alternative source of news despite the criticism the network receives from western media and governments. Al-Jazeera came into being as a network through the help of the Qatar government when an emiri decree established the network in February 1996. The formation of Al- Jazeera was an effort to modernize and democratize Qatar. An amount of $137 million was allocated to establish the network’s bureau with offices in Washington, New York, London, Brussels, Moscow, Djakarta and Islamabad. Unlike western news media that have a one-way orientation of gathering and telling the news to its audiences, Al-Jazeera has come to grip with the reality that its gathering and telling of news reflect and represent a two-way flow of information, images and diverse opinion. With its programming focusing primarily on news coverage and analysis, the network structural component of journalists are a loose, sociable bunch, representing about all twenty-two members of the Arab League. For example, Moroccan producers, Syrian talk show hosts, Iraqi translators, Algerian fixers, Sudanese librarians, Palestinian secretaries and Qatari executives---all speak together in Arabic. This mixed composition of reporting team produces political talk shows and documentaries with uncensored debates and free arguments covering events as they happen. The network has earned loyalty to its audience in the Arab world and beyond as it became prominent since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States.


Al-Jazeera has since focused its news coverage on the hottest region of conflict. The network’s video images from Afghanistan and Pakistan reach the U.S. through a multinational collection of satellite and earth stations. The station, which is owned by Al-Jazeera Satellite Channel and managed by Afkar Information Technology, a web service firm in Doha, Qatar, has programs available worldwide via various satellite and cable systems with multi-lingual and affluent audience. The network programming reaches about 40 million Arab homes; grown phenomenally due to development in the region with a 24 hour Arabic language satellite news channel from the Gulf emirate of Qatar. The network has become a viable entity in the Arab region because of its alternative provision of news and analysis on political, social, economical, cultural and religious issues from local and global perspective. Because of Al-Jazeera’s essential role of breaking news gathering in an aggressive fashion in trouble spots of the region, the network has attracted the attention of western media. For example, CNN can take feeds from Al-Jazeera, while subscribers of the Dish Network can receive Al-Jazeera’s programming directly, which lends a an marketing route to both Arab viewers as well as Americans in the U.S. For instance, Arab language packages are available in America for $29.99 per month while an annual package is available for $329.89 with a one-month price break. Viewers who take advantage of these packages receive international programming in news, sports, drama, TV series, documentaries, and so forth and 10 incredible channels. This marketing strategy through Dish Network provides Al-Jazeera’s major programs: news every half hour, overall women, news on the half hour, sport dialogue, religion and life opposite directions, and so forth. These programs are interspersed with commercials for variety of businesses across the globe. Al-Jazeera network is a valuable source for alternative news coverage and analysis to its audiences across the globe stemming from many respects. The network became more viable and appreciable to many viewers during the United States war with the Taliban government in Afghanistan. 


Sensing U.S. retaliation following the September 11, 2003 terrorist attacks, the Taliban quickly forced all foreign journalists out of Kabul except correspondents from Al-Jazeera, since the network had established history with the Taliban during past coverage of activities in the Afghan region. As Kabul experienced heavy bombardment from cluster U.S bombs, Al-Jazeera network became the only reliable news source that western media and outside world depended on for day-to-day report of happenings in Kabul and other surrounding areas of Afghanistan. Live images of civilian casualties were displayed on Al-Jazeera television as 35 million viewers in the Arab world and 150,000 viewers in the U.S. swamped their television set to see Osama bin Laden video tape denouncing the American government’s action against the Taliban. While the U.S. broadcast media censored the video of Osama bin Laden’s speech, Al-Jazeera became the only alternative news network to provide uncensored news material from the parties involved in the conflict. Angered by the network continued live coverage of images and interviews from Taliban officials as well as bin Laden statement, on November 13, 2001, a pair of 500 pound U.S. bombs destroyed the network’s Kabul office This is said so because the network does not promote a particular nation’s political ideology as the U.S. media tend to do. This is evidenced by the network bitter experience of resentment not only from western government but also governments in its region of dominance.


Al-Jazeera has evoked the wrath of almost every Arab government. For instance, Al-Raya Qatari daily, a newspaper in Qatar, accused Saudi Arabia of making covert effort to pressure the network----to prevent some Saudi companies from advertising on Al-Jazeera, as a way to dry-up its resources because the network breaks certain taboos in the region. Al-Jazeera is known and famous in the Arab world because of its news policy and media policies that depend on objectivity and freedom, says its web-site manager, Mahmood Abdulhadai in an interview with the Wall Street Journal online service.  According to Mahmood, the website traffic jumped after September 11, 2001 to 1.2 million page viewers and about 40% U.S. visitors. Live streaming of Al-Jazeera television on the website was great part of its marketing strategy and policy to let the broadcast reach all Arabs in the world. Seventy percent of people living in the Gulf receive their news from satellite television----60% of Palestinians in the West Bank have access to satellite dish. Most troubling aspects of the attempts to manipulate and smear Al-Jazeera is the specter of censorship of inconvenient and embarrassing news about civilians killed in a war that is not supposed to be aimed at the Afghan people. What makes Al-Jazeera a distinctive alternative source for changing global in shaping news is that the network is not beholden to U.S. officials for access; it is not under the control of the Pentagon press pool system. 


Worst still is the implication that Al-Jazeera is a threat because it alone provides an honest and open forum for Arab public opinion. Trying to vilify or censor the network would send the worst possible message to Arabs that free debate and, by implication, democracy in the Arab world are threatening to the West. The western press criticized the network in the western press, at the same time, heavily relying on news and footage gathered by the network from war zones. This puts Al-Jazeera at a vantage point as responsible alternative news provider distinguishable from U.S. media. The network allows interviews from all concern parties bringing to its global viewers divergent perspectives on political, social, economical, cultural issues. It is a known fact that U.S. media do not show its American audience a full-length video of Osama bin Laden and others who bitter reject U.S foreign policy. But Al-Jazeera does. That is the reason why the network is perceived in the eyes of its many viewers as an objective and responsible news organ in the Middle East and beyond. 


Al-Jazeera, with its bureaus staffed with journalists from diverse backgrounds in and out of the Arab world is perceived as being credible to enhance global perspective in shaping news, because the network is not particularly oriented toward promoting a particular government agenda. Governments both in the Arab world and the Western world, particularly the U.S., have expressed bitter resentment toward the network since the conflict in Afghanistan and Iraq because of the network’s aggressive nature of its news gathering and presentation. In the choice between pleasing government or pleasing viewers, Al-Jazeera chose the latter. There’s hardly an Arab government that station has not offended. For example, the Palestinian Authorities, Algerian government and Egypt’s state run media all expressed bitter resentment against Al-Jazeera. 


Yasir Arafat was reportedly incensed by the network’s frequent interviews with the Hamas spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. In another development, Al-Jazeera upset Palestinian authorities with a preview for a march 2001 documentary that explored the role of Palestinian guerillas played in Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war. Security personnel entered the Palestinian bureau of the network and demanded that images insulting to Arafat be removed; the network refused, and continued to air the footage. When the network aired a program probing Algeria’s civil war, the government in Algiers cut the network signal. Egypt’s state media had a campaign denouncing the station as sinister salad of sex, religion and politics topped with sensationalist seasoning.    


Despite U.S. officials’ sharp criticism of the network, they even talk of buying time on Al-Jazeera to broadcast some kind of paid political advertisement about the Arab conflict. American media networks grab Al-Jazeera’s video images but don’t have the perspective to add because they’re not on the ground. The hard truth is that the U.S. media left America as unprepared for these terrorist attacks. As U.S. dropped bombs on Iraq---whether it is justified or not---the U.S. media would failed to present the story objectively for the sake of patriotism. Such weaknesses on the part of U.S. media could largely be attributed to the demise of the cold war. Since the end of the cold war in the early 1990s, the American news media have scaled back its coverage of international news; domestic news coverage has been the focus while international news has taken the backseat. According to (McPhail chp 1, pg. 2) reading, television newscasts by the major U.S. networks now carry less foreign news than in previous decades with reduction in foreign bureaus and coverage with a domestic agenda and concerns. If the 1991 Gulf War made CNN, the current conflict with Iraq represents a similar global coming of age for Al-Jazeera. According to the New York Times about 200 college campuses and 50 cable companies added Arab’s Al-Jazeera on April 1 this year to compete with major U.S. networks during the news hour two days a week. Campuses, including the University of Chicago, can see Al-Jazeera aired in its original language, without subtitles. 

As the network progresses, not only in the Arab world but also in the U.S and other parts of the world, the challenge lies ahead for the U.S. media to revaluate its weaknesses in global news coverage. In an interview with CNN, Al-Jazeera’s Washington D.C. Bureau Chief, Hafiz al-Nirazi said that Colin Powell has said good words about the network as well as Condoleezza Rice and other U.S. officials despite their concern about the network’s uncensored style of graphic presentation of news and information in the Middle East. According to the Al-Jazeera’s D.C. chief, these U.S. officials respect the credibility of the network and the objectivity. 

The problem actually is with the American news media; they have declined in responsible form of reporting news since the end of the cold war in the early 1990s; American news media tend to engage in “parachute journalism.” American journalists arrive on the scene of an incident only if the impact or magnitude of the incident is humanly costly. For example, stories that are characterized by natural disaster, (earthquakes), bloody coup de tat, ethnic war, mass scale murder and other negative news that unfolds in developing countries.  Therefore, American news media would always instigate against an independent media like Al-Jazeera, because the Arab network do what the American media cannot do, which is not to mix patriotism with journalism. Al-Jazeera represents the best trends of openness and democratization in the Arab world. It should be celebrated and encourage, not smeared or censored.      


Thanks for reading.
Alex Redd

We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that time is ripe to do right.

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