Al JazeeraEssay Preview: Al JazeeraReport this essayHistoryAl Jazeera claims to be the only politically independent television station in the Middle East. The station remains partly dependent on the emir of Qatar for funding. Now rivaling the BBC in worldwide audiences Al Jazeera was started with a $150 million grant from the emir of Qatar; it aimed to become self-sufficient through advertising by 2001, but when this failed to occur the emir agreed to continue subsidizing it on a year-by-year basis ($30 million in 2004[1], according to Arnaud de Borchgrave). Other major sources of income include advertising, cable subscription fees, broadcasting deals with other companies, and sale of footage (according to Pravda[2], “Al-Jazeera received $20,000 per minute for Bin Ladens speech”.) In 2000, advertising accounted for 40% of the stations revenue[3].
A year later Al Jazeera was acquired by the BBC, and the programme’s success was partly attributed to these efforts.[4] At the end of 2004, the station began offering only one English version; this came under the Ombudsman of Democracy and Co-operation (OCCO) name.[5] In 2005, the BBC announced a plan to end OCCO and to establish an independent committee to monitor foreign broadcasts of Al Jazeera. A second plan was set up by the OCCO that failed, resulting in the termination of all rights to foreign broadcasts. Thereafter Al Jazeera relied on donations to continue paying fees to the OCCO to cover fees related to it’s programming. Over the past two years the BBC has continued to finance Al Jazeera; the sum of the programme’s funding was reduced to $8.1 million in 2002, $8.6 million in that year, and still $2.9 million in 2003. A more recent study by the UN Development Programme, published in 2006, found that despite Al Jazeera’s success, its revenues have declined substantially. The OCCO has become an increasingly conservative organisation with a large influence over its members.[6] With the end of 2006 the OCCO is due to begin accepting donations for its own programs. Al Jazeera Media Development has established an online forum, www.alijanews.org, in which members can upload their work to Al Jazeera. The group offers an integrated system of social media that allows them to disseminate the news responsibly and efficiently, and to communicate information in a way which appeals to young people. (In 2008, a panel of more than 20 experts from three different national and international organizations met in Oman to discuss ways and means to build a movement of reform of this internationally recognised media. This brought the national group together in order to improve the quality of Al Jazeera’s content and to encourage others to participate and influence it by its internal standards.) The goal is to develop a more open forum with “remediated and authoritative information that conveys the most accurate and accurate viewpoint on important issues, issues that need attention and will shape the development of the medium.”
According to the United Nations, the UN Secretary-General, John Gingring, in a recent blog post said, “There is something about some of the media we have been told not to share which is particularly troubling in our country. And frankly, that something has to do with the lack of open and accurate news. The lack of transparency and the lack of accountability around it. When you look at the history the Middle East has been a democratic but one way way society was able to be run from the beginning, whether it’s democracy in 1948 or freedom in 1960. And unfortunately the media we’ve been told to ignore. As far as I know today, it’s pretty much dead. Nobody gets to choose how they see the world. A lot of what is coming will be happening through the BBC. Al Jazeera is trying to become the next BBC, but will it be as popular as the last one? The BBC needs to develop its digital content to the next level – or else they’ll have to go under.”
The channel began broadcasting in late 1996. In April of that year, the BBC World Services Arabic language TV station, faced with censorship demands by the Saudi Arabian government, had shut down after two years of operation. Many of the former BBC staff members joined Al Jazeera. By 2005, Al Jazeera plans to expand its operations by setting up an English Channel satellite service called Al Jazeera International. Its Asian bureau will be in Kuala Lumpur. Its European bureau will be in London and its American Bureau will be in Washington D.C..
ViewershipIt is widely believed internationally that inhabitants of the Arab world are given limited information by their governments and media, and that what is conveyed is biased. Many people see Al Jazeera as a more trustworthy source of information than government and foreign channels. As a result, it is probably the most watched news channel in the Middle East.
Increasingly, Al Jazeeras exclusive interviews and other footage are being rebroadcast in American, British, and other western media outlets such as CNN and the BBC. In January 2003, the BBC announced that it had signed an agreement with Al Jazeera for sharing facilities and information, including news footage. Al Jazeera is now considered a fairly mainstream media network, though more controversial than most.
StaffThe CEO of Al Jazeera is Sheikh Hamad bin Thamer al-Thani, a distant cousin of Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani.The current managing editor is Waddah Khanfar. His number two is Ahmed Sheikh. His number three is Muhammed Ben Salem.The managing editor for the yet-to-be-launched Aljazeera International is Shane Johnson.The latest in a string of managing editors of the English-language site is Omar Bec – who is currently caretaking the site after the departures of Joanne Tucker, Ahmed Sheikh and Alison Balharry.
The head of the Arabic website is Muhammad Dawud.Criticism and harassmentFrom BahrainBahrain Information Minister Nabil al-Hamr banned the station from reporting from inside the country on May 10, 2002 because the station was biased towards Israel and against Bahrain. [4]
From SpainReporter Taysir Allouni was arrested in Spain on September 5, 2003, on a charge of having provided support for members of Al-Qaida. Judge Baltasar Garzуn, who had issued the arrest warrant, ordered Allouni held indefinitely without bail. He was nevertheless released several weeks later, but was prohibited from leaving the country.
From the United StatesThe station first gained significant attention in the west following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, when it broadcast videos in which Osama bin Laden and Sulaiman Abu Ghaith defended and justified the attacks. This led to criticism by the United States government that Al Jazeera was engaging in propaganda on behalf of terrorists. Al Jazeera countered that it was merely making information available, and indeed several western television channels later followed suit in broadcasting portions of the tapes. Nevertheless, CNN cut its ties with Al Jazeera for several months over this controversy.
On March 25, 2003, two of its reporters covering the New York Stock Exchange had their credentials revoked. NYSE spokesman Ray Pellechia claimed “security reasons” and that the exchange had decided to give access only to networks that focus “on responsible business coverage”. He denied the revocation has anything to do with the networks Iraq war coverage. [5]
On January 30, 2005 Steven R. Weisman of the New York Times reported that the Qatar government, under pressure from the George W. Bush administration, was speeding up plans to sell the station. [6]
From Muslim viewersAl Jazeera has been criticized by many of its Muslim viewers for giving air time to Israeli officials.Al Jazeera and IraqPartial Ban in U.S.On March 4, 2003, during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, the New York Stock Exchange banned Al Jazeera (as well as several other news organizations whose identities were not revealed) from its trading floor indefinitely, citing “security concerns” as the official reason. The move was quickly mirrored by Nasdaq stock market officials. Critics have drawn the conclusion that the Bush administrations distaste for the stations reporting of the invasion of Iraq was the underlying motivation. The administration has voiced such criticisms of Al Jazeera. For example, on April 27, 2004, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, said, “On Iraq they have established a pattern of false reporting.” (WSVN)
11 Jul 20, 2003
Analect.net: “The Obama Administration’s Response to ISIL’s Terrorist Network is the Only one of its kind that has been successful in getting people from Syria to the Middle East without ever being caught.” – American Civil Liberties Union, Inc./Press Release by Al Arabiya
We’ve been following the news for a few months now and it has gotten increasingly hot for Al Jazeera, but we’ll get this one right. The Obama Administration should be thanking Al Jazeera for this very important media resource for the past ten years. At a critical time in our administration, the only way to provide news coverage for all is to provide the highest quality news. In our efforts to bring to Syria and Syria the people that would be fleeing the Islamic State (ISIL) and the Syrian government must be delivered with the highest quality of the news that has helped make the State Department and the Department of State, the world’s most powerful institutions possible, possible. As we have been fortunate enough, we have had great resources to provide news to the people of Syria and Syria the US government needs to know the truth about what is happening there. As the last of those services, we are also grateful to our allies—the countries of the former USSR together with Russia and Egypt—for helping to deliver the message we all seek to convey. In other words, while it is hard to believe the US has lost all credibility in the face of its continued support for ISIL, the American Embassy in Benghazi, Libya, provided many of the most influential voices in political, social, and religious issues, including a lot of us who were close to the American government. We will thank all of those involved in the process.We will continue to support individuals who have been affected by the violence in Libya. We want to support those with similar needs to those who are fleeing their homes or simply trying to stay in countries like Syria. But even those with a very different worldview than us are important to us because we want our own people, our own community around us. But the Obama Administration has failed to turn those who might support us around and offer critical media coverage based on their own views.As we have been fortunate enough to experience for a very long time, we are lucky that the Obama Administration has also been able to show the most relevant and innovative aspects of its efforts to bring us to Syria today. This approach has worked very well. However, in the case of the very serious threats faced by the Syrian people at large, the administration has decided that the best way of responding is to get ahead of the Syrian people’s problems in Syria, and then to continue to engage with all sides of those concerns to find new sources of inspiration and information to counter them. We thank the Obama Administration for this effort because it has set our international expectations of excellence up on top of what it can do. The State Department’s support for the Syrian struggle will help ensure that any effort to overthrow the Assad government can succeed, which will help make it possible to start a real conversation on Syria before there is any possibility of a new conflict.Al Jazeera will continue to make the most important contribution ever to help rebuild Syrians who have lost a lot of money, who are on the receiving end of a lot of intimidation, and who are facing discrimination and violence. We want to make sure that Al Jazeera continues to be accessible to those who struggle with discrimination.
Initial Ban in IraqDuring the Iraq war, Al Jazeera faced the same reporting and movement restrictions as other stations. In addition, one of its reporters, Tayseer Allouni, was banned from the country by the Iraqi Information Ministry, while another one, Diyar Al-Omari, was banned from reporting in Iraq (both decisions were later retracted). Also at one stage it withdrew from the country, citing unreasonable interference from Iraqi officials.
Attacked by US ForcesOn April 8, 2003 Al Jazeeras office in Baghdad was attacked by US forces, killing reporter Tareq Ayyoub and wounding another, despite the US being informed of the offices precise co-ordinates just prior to the incident. Similarily, on November 13, 2001 the US launched a missile attack on Al Jazeeras office in Kabul, Afghanistan during