Introduction
Ever since an international news network Al Jazeera came into being in 1996, it never ceased stirring public controversy in Arab world on the account of its journalists’ ‘freethinking’ style of reporting. However, it was namely after the attacks of 9/11 that Al Jazeera had gained a fame of politically unengaged news channel, which was providing viewers with non-Western perspective on socio-political events across the globe. As of today, the very existence of Al Jazeera and the fact that its viewing audience continues to increase in exponential progression to the flow of time, had effectively deprived Western Medias of a ‘monopoly on truth’. As it has been rightly pointed out in Mohammed el-Nawawy’s article “Why Al-Jazeera is the Most Popular Network in the Arab World”: “Qatari-based Al-Jazeera satellite channel, the first 24-hour all-news network in the Arab world seems to have ended the Western monopoly of global dissemination of information, by standing head-to-head, and even scooping major Western news networks like CNN” (2003, 11). In this paper, we will aim to define what accounted for reporting trends, associated with Al Jazeera’s journalists executing their professional duties before and after 2001, and also to show how Al Jazeera’s live-broadcasts had established objective preconditions for Western public opinion, in regards to events in Middle East, to undergo a drastic transformation.
Main body
Even a brief analysis of programs, broadcasted by Al Jazeera prior to 2001, provides us with the insight on why this Arabic news channel had fallen out of favor with governments of many Muslim countries as ‘provocative’ and ‘immoral’. This was a direct consequence of Al Jazeera’s journalists adopting the principle of representational objectivity as the cornerstone of their professional philosophy – something previously unheard of in state-controlled Arab Medias. Prior to Al Jazeera’s founding in 1996, journalists in Arab countries were expected to observe an unofficial code of ‘Arabic solidarity’, while reporting on politics-related events. The emergence of Al Jazeera had changed this state of affairs rather drastically – even as early as 1996-1997, channel’s journalists had found themselves at liberty to adopt a critical attitude towards what they perceived as indications of retrogradedness in Arab countries’ socio-political dynamics. In its turn, this explains why prior to 2001, Western leaders used to praise Al Jazeera as the only democratic news channel in the whole Arab world – before the events of 9/11, Al Jazeera was considered a promoter of Western geopolitical agenda in the area, as it helped the members of Arab viewing audience to expand their intellectual horizons.
In his article “Al-Jazeera: Media Pariah or Pioneer?”, Jack Higgins states: “Al-Jazeera’s popularity undoubtedly lies in that it was the first in the Arabic world to offer uncensored breaking news combined with lively talk shows” (2002, 22). Thus, it was only the matter of time, before Al Jazeera would gain a fame of highly controversial news channel – the very format of network’s journalistic philosophy, had created objective preconditions for it happen, in the first place.
In its turn, this explains why Al Jazeera’s initial five years of being on the air, were strongly associated with the process of this news channel pushing the limits of Arabic tolerance. For example, the talk show The Opposite Direction, broadcasted by Al Jazeera on August 13, 1999, featured a heated discussion between two socially prominent women from Egypt and Jordan (Safinaz Kazem and Tojan Faisal) on the subject of Islamic polygamy. In the middle of discussion, the defender of ‘traditional values’ from Egypt, tried hitting her opponent. In 1998, The Opposite Direction featured an interview with former Egyptian dissident, sentenced in Egypt to death in absentia – this resulted in Egyptian officials sending a note of protest to the government of Qatar. In 2000, Al Jazeera journalists provided an extensive coverage of Palestinian Intifada – thus, stirring up controversy within Egyptian society, on the account of this country’s defeatist stance, in regards to Israel’s occupation of Palestine.
In his book “Al-Jazeera: The Story of the Network That Is Rattling Governments and Redefining”, Mohammed El-Nawawy and Adel Iskandar state: “Egyptian fury peaked when Al-Jazeera crews in the West Bank and Gaza provided footage in late October 2000 of angry Palestinians burning Egyptian flags in protest of the Arab summit held in Egypt earlier that month” (2003, 137). Thus, it appears that the conceptual essence Al Jazeera’s reporting, prior to September of 2001, can be best described as having been concerned with journalists’ intention to promote democratic values with Arab viewing audiences.
The events of 9/11 have resulted in Western public opinion of Al Jazeera undergoing a drastic transformation, because by providing airtime to Osama bin laden, Qatar’s news network had unintentionally affiliated itself international terrorism. Al Jazeera has fallen out of favor with representatives of America’s political establishment even more after it began providing live coverage of American invasion to Afghanistan in the same year. Al Jazeera’s reports of the invasion used to portray America’s war in Afghanistan as resulting in humanitarian disaster. Unlike what was the case with Western mainstream Medias, Al Jazeera had applied a great effort into trying to enlighten viewers on the actual meaning of ‘collateral damage’ term. In its turn, this resulted in Muslim public opinion beginning to refer to America’s ‘war on terror’ as being essentially terroristic.
In her article “The Most Hated Name in News”, Deborah Campbell states: “Prior to 9/11, Al Jazeera was greeted by US officials as good news for Arab democracy. All that changed in October 2001, when it aired the first videotaped message from Osama bin Laden after the attacks on New York, and then began reporting on civilian casualties during the American invasion of Afghanistan” (2009, 49). In the aftermath of 9/11 attacks, many Western politicians and journalists would go even as far as implying Al Jazeera being nothing but Al Qaeda’s informational branch. In his article “Al Jazeera Unmasked: An Arab Propaganda Machine in the Guise of Real Journalism”, Zev Chafets had suggested that Al Jazeera’s offices represent a legitimate target for American military: “Al Jazeera is the favorite network of Bin Laden. It provides him with an unedited forum for his calls to Jihad. Some American news executives think it might be dangerous to rebroadcast Bin Laden’s screeds because they could contain encrypted messages to his followers” (2001). As time went by, these kinds of suggestions had gained full legitimacy with Western politicians, which explains why in 2001, Al Jazeera’s office in Kabul has been ‘accidentally’ hit by American smart bomb.
Nevertheless, the closer analysis of how Al Jazeera’s journalists would approach the task of covering world’s post-9/11 socio-political events, does not allow us to suggest that after 2001, network’s operational philosophy has been cardinally revised. Just as it was the case ever since the time of Al Jazeera’s founding, the principle of perceptional objectivity still remains at the heart of this news channel’s functioning. This is exactly the reason why, despite accusations of ‘terroristic collaborationism’ and ‘politically engaged one-sidedness’, faced by Al Jazeera since 2001, Qatar’s news network never ceased providing an opportunity to most prominent American and Israeli politicians to express their point of view, in regards to a variety of geopolitical issues. Rick Zednick’s article “Inside Al Jazeera” substantiates the validity of this suggestion: “As the State Department was pressuring Al Jazeera to limit anti-American content, it was offering the station its own officials for interviews. Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, and Condoleezza Rice all appeared on Al Jazeera, as did Christopher Ross, a former American ambassador to Syria who speaks fluent Arabic” (2002, 46). At the same time, it would be quite inappropriate to imply that ever since 1996, Al Jazeera’s reporting style remained virtually unchanged.
Apparently, just as it is the case with journalists representing Western Medias, Al Jazeera’s reporters came to realize that an ongoing process of Western and Arabic societies’ intellectual marginalization provides them with new professional opportunities. In its turn, this explains why ever since 2001, Al Jazeera’s journalists were growing increasingly preoccupied with trying to find shockingly graphic events to cover – intellectually marginalized audiences think of graphic sensationalism in terms of an entertainment. As it has been rightly suggested by El-Nawawy and Iskandar in the book from which we have already quoted: “Al-Jazeera’s exclusive (Afghani) footage of young children bruised and bandaged in Kabul hospital beds, mothers wailing and lamenting the loss of families, elderly men lying helpless in tents, bodies laid out on stretchers, homes reduced to rubble — all this was just too emotionally intense” (2003, 161). Thus, the main difference between how Al Jazeera used to represent news in making prior to 2001 and its post-9/11 ways of representing this news, appears to be the Westernization of Qatar news network’s operational approach to newsworthiness – the fact that Osama bin Laden was able to rely on Al Jazeera, while spreading the message of terror, had nothing to do with him being in cahoots with this news channel, but rather with him being able to attract even more viewers to Al Jazeera.
Therefore, we can only agree with Alia Malek, who in her article “Al-Jazeera’s new Global Gamble”, had rebuffed suggestions as to the fact that, while allowing the broadcast of Osama’s tapes, Al Jazeera’s owners were being driven by some malicious intentions: “The mistake, however, is to assume that bin Laden is more than a celebrity—that he is a star or hero—because Al-Jazeera has given him so much airtime. Instead, he is as much a selling point for Al-Jazeera and its host country, Qatar, as the Gulf War was for CNN and the United States” (2006, 11). Apparently, Al Jazeera journalists’ taste for sensationalism indicates their metaphysical affiliation with Western journalism more than anything else does. The fact that after 2001, Al Jazeera had effectively ceased being considered appealing to solely Arabic audiences substantiates the validity of such our suggestion perfectly well.
As of 2010, the popularity of Al Jazeera with viewing audiences had increased to such an extent, that this Qatar’s news television network now directly competes with such long-established Western news channels as CNN and BBC. In 2007, Al Jazeera began broadcasting in English on 24/7 basis, while also providing viewers with an option of watching channel’s news and interactive talk shows over the Internet. In many American cities, cable providers have realized that they will be able to benefit enormously from including Al Jazeera’s programs in their news packages, even though that such their practice is being often deemed ‘unpatriotic’. In her article “Adding Al Jazeera”, Shakuntala Rao quotes the director of Al Jazeera International Nigel Parsons, according to which, it is only the matter of very short time, before Qatar-based news network will be recognized by Americans as one of the most credible sources of televised news: “We firmly believe that the more consumers see Al Jazeera International, the more demand there will be for cable operators to provide viewers with the opportunity to watch us” (2007, 17). It appears that, during the course of recent years, it had dawned upon Al Jazeera’s owners that one of the reasons why their news network continues to gain popularity with Western audiences is because, despite the fact that Western societies are being traditionally associated with the freedom of press de jure, such freedom is actually nonexistent de facto.
Regardless of whether we want to admit it or not – it is the fact Western mainstream Medias are being almost exclusively owned by representatives of ‘chosen people’, which explains why these Medias appear pro-Israeli biased, especially when it comes to covering the events in Middle East and covering stories about America’s military being used to defend Israeli interests in the area. In their article “Media, Education and Anti-Americanism in the Muslim World”, Matthew Gentzkow and Jesse Shapiro state: “In terms of the war in Iraq, a study of CNN’s coverage found that only 3 percent of U.S. guests interviewed expressed opposition to the war, compared with 27 percent opposition in the American public as a whole” (2004, 123). This also explains the reason why, during the course of recent decade, Western Medias served essentially the purpose of citizens’ neo-Liberal/neo-Conservative ideological brainwashing.
Therefore, it comes as no surprise why the process of Al Jazeera’s informational legitimization in Western countries has been met by a fierce resistance, on the part of representatives of Jewish lobby. For example, according to Executive Vice President of B’nai Brith Canada Frank Dimant: “The introduction of an English-language Al Jazeera into Canadian homes can only provide yet another outlet for vicious anti-Israel propaganda” (2010). However, the labels of anti-Semitism, which are being constantly applied to Al Jazeera, do not change the fact that if anything, the expansion of this Qatar-based news channel onto Western informational market can only result in facilitating the freedom of speech as the most fundamental tenet of Western democracies.
The irony lays in the fact that many representatives of American political establishment continue to firmly believe that it is exclusively up to them to spread the message of democracy throughout the world, which in its turn, prevents them from realization of a simple fact that there can be no monopoly on interpretation of what the concept of democracy stands for. Therefore, even though Al Jazeera’s logo might not appear particularly pleasing to a Western eye, due to the fact that Zionist Medias have succeeded in convincing many Westerners to think of Arabic language as the ‘language of terrorists’, this news channel’s informational content is best described as absolutely pro-American, as it is being concerned with promotion of democratic values.
As Dave Marash had put it in his article “Why Can’t You Watch Al Jazeera in English?”: “The Al Jazeera formula is simple: ambitious, accurate presentations of news, and as close to perfectly free analyses, discussions, even arguments about the news on talk shows. This is an approach I would call specifically not only American, but Jeffersonian” (2007, 49). Thus, it would not be an exaggeration to suggest that Al Jazeera International contributed rather substantially to the process of America’s foreign policies being cardinally revised, ever since Barack Obama has been elected as U.S. President, simply because that by watching this news channel, more and more Americans were beginning to realize that the attacks of 9/11 had very little to do with Islamic fundamentalists’ inability to stand the sight of American women wearing short skirts and walking around with their faces uncovered, as George W. Bush continued to insist, but rather with the fact that, while Bush held Presidential office, America never ceased pumping Israel with military and financial aid – contrary to its own national interests.
In his article “Inside Al-Jazeera”, Kevin Kim quotes one of Al Jazeera’s most prominent journalists Samir Khader, who suggested that it has always been an integral element of network news anchors’ corporate ethics to draw a line between ordinary citizens and the government, which supposedly acts in these citizens’ best interests: “We at Al-Jazeera try to make a difference between a country’s government and its people. We try our best to explain to viewers that this U.S. foreign policy has nothing to do with the American people, values, ethics, ideals and dreams” (2004). As of today, Al Jazeera International broadcasts can be referred to as anything but regionally focused, which is why more and more intenational viewers grow to refer to Al Jazeera as better-quality alternative to BBC, mainly because Al Jazeera has absolutely no ties with Zionist agenda. Just as its very name implies, Al Jazeera functions as the ‘peninsula of informational freedom’ not just in Arab world, but in Western world as well.
Conclusions
The conclusions of this paper can be summarized as follows:
- Prior to September 2001, Al Jazeera’s functioning has been primarily concerned with promotion of democratic values among Arab audiences.
- After attacks of 9/11, Al Jazeera adopted a function of promoting democratic values among Western audiences, since coalition’s war on Afghanistan and Iraq represented the most blatant violation of international law in recent history.
- Al Jazeera’s expansion onto Western informational markets has helped raising awareness among Westerners as to often counter-productive subtleties of America’s ‘war on terror’, which in its turn, resulted in citizens’ opinions being shifted from favoring this ‘war’ to denying its conceptual validity altogether. As a result, the influence of neo-Conservatives in America’s political establishment has been substantially undermined – thus, bringing about Barack Obama’s victory in 2009 Presidential elections and consequential revision of America’s foreign policies.
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