Press
Ten years after its launching, Al-Jazeera sets out to conquer the World
Hasni Abidi, Director of the Centre for Studies on the Arab and Mediterranean World, outlines the Qatari network’s project to broadcast programmes in English to the whole planet.
Never has the launching of a television network aroused so much interest and so many questions. It is true that the Al-Jazeera International project is not crystal clear. The future sister of the extremely controversial Qatari news channel should be the first Arab news channel to broadcast in English from the Middle-East, but it is struggling to see the day.
The official reasons for the delay in its launching range from the lack of available premises in Western cities to the technical difficulties of creating a high definition television network between the four headquarters that are planned (Doha, Kuala Lumpur, London and Washington). Programmes could start in November 2006 on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of Al-Jazeera in Arabic.
The association of the two Al-Jazeera channels is certain to have a stigmatising effect on the reputation of the English-language channel, especially in the USA : before the 11 September, Al-Jazeera was singled out for its freedom of expression and for its criticism of Arab governments, which put it in an avant-garde position with regard to the democratic process in the Middle-East. Since 2001, it has become “the television of terror” in political and popular imagination, thereby encouraging anti-American attitudes in Muslims. This negative perception of Al-Jazeera is the consequence of the broadcasting of videos of Ben-Laden, of appeals by Al-Qaida, of pictures of Western hostages kidnapped in Iraq, and of the use of terms with debatable political or religious connotations. As a result of all this, Al-Jazeera has been expelled from Iraq.
In its defence, Al-Jazeera has accused the American army of brutal attacks against its offices in Kabul and Baghdad, where the journalist Tarek Ayoub lost his life in 2003.
On the other side of the Atlantic, organisations such as Accuracy in Media and United American Committee are trying to prevent Al-Jazeera International from broadcasting by means of intense negative propaganda. The negotiations for its satellite distribution rights have been long and arduous.
In an interview given to the Washington Post within the framework of the PEJ (Projet for Excellency in Journalism), Joanne Levine, Director of Programmes for the USA, criticises the ostracism and the confrontational attitude of the American media.
The main bone of contention revolves around the risk of broadcasting, in English, news, images, perceptions and points of view “other” than those held by the Americans, coming from regions where the Americans are either engaged militarily, or where they are involved in ad hoc diplomacy, which has shown its limits.
The political potential of Al-Jazeera International lies precisely within the context of this communication crisis and lack of mutual comprehension. The Directors of the Channel must face up to their commitments. It is undeniable that some of the reporting methods used by Al-Jazeera – for example, the in-loop broadcasting of brutal scenes, the use of controversial cultural concepts or definitions – can lead (and have led) to tensions and to feelings of resentment.
Although Al-Jaazeera International is financed by the Arab channel, it insists on its editorial independence. It has engaged a whole fleet of well-known journalists such as sir David Frost (BBC), Raghe Omar (BBC), Riz Khan (CNN) and David Marash (ABC), who will lend their face and their experience to in-depth reports and news programmes.
The danger is that this will result in watered-down programmes, modelled on those of Western networks, broadcast to a public which will be overcome by lethargy as time goes by. However, this seems unlikely to happen, since the originality of the channel lies in its having called upon a fleet of journalists from all over the world, covering regions neglected up till now such as Africa, Asia, or Latin America, in order to become a world-wide channel. AJI hopes to reach 40 million households.
The hostility of the American market and the fact that AJI is excluded for the time-being from the Australian market could mean that they will make a financial loss. The Arab Al-Jazeera is still in the red figures, owing to the Saudi’s advertising boycott. But the political gains for Qatar are enormous. Al-Jazeera and, tomorrow, AJI will confirm the prominent position of the small Emirate on the international scene. Indeed, it is in order to stay in the spotlight that the emir of Qatar is investing huge sums of money to keep the channel going. Apparently with great success, since in 2004, Brandchannel.com established that Al-Jazeera was the fifth most important brand in the world, just behind Starbucks.
On the downside, criticism emanating from the entourage of the Board of Directors, whose members are mainly well-paid English people, is not very encouraging. Internal conflicts have arisen in connection with the editorial line, the heterogeneousness of the staff, and the apparently arbitrary and controversial way in which tasks and positions are distributed.
The Director-General of the AJ Network, Waddah Khanfar, asserts that the aims of the two Al-Jazeeras are one and the same, that is, to constitute a real alternative to government-controlled media and to compensate for the lacunae of the Western-focused channels like CNN.
Translated into English by Marguerite Cornu and Angela Wells
-- Hasni Abidi and Chiara Sulmoni 2 November 2006
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- Origin CERMAM
- http://www.cermam.org/en/logs/press/ten_years_after_its_launching/
- Publié le 2 November 2006