MEDIA: Al Jazeera Television Broadcasts Osama bin Laden’s Message

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Kim Ghattas

BEIRUT, Oct 8 2001 (IPS) - Al Jazeera television was again the focus of the world media on Sunday, as it broadcast a pre-recorded address by Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden in which he called on all Muslims to unite in a ‘jihad’ (holy war) against the United States.

The Qatar-based television quoted bin Laden as saying that the United States would know no peace until “Palestine” did.

The TV station, long acclaimed for its bold, western-like approach to news coverage of the Middle East, is now being applauded again for its coverage of the developments since the Sep 11 attacks on New York and Washington. It is the only TV station with a regular correspondent inside Afghanistan, who has been reporting from Kabul for two years.

U.S. secretary of state Colin Powell complained last week to the Qatari emir Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani about the “virulent” anti-American positions voiced by some of the guests on al Jazeera’s talk shows.

Earlier, the U.S. embassy in Doha filed a formal complaint to the Qatari government, saying the station had a tendency to interview analysts who argued it was the U.S.’s foreign policy which brought about the Sep 11 plane attacks.

The Americans also expressed concerns about the repeated airing of an interview with bin Laden dating back a few years that was deemed an eulogy to his character.

Regardless of the complaints, the United States cannot afford to do much more do reign in the TV station that is commonly referred to as the Arab world’s CNN with an estimated 40 million viewers. Freedom of speech, a value so prized by the United States, means that anti-American opinions will also make it on air.

The TV station has acknowledged the American complaint but will not do anything about it.

“Because this comes from the United States, which considers itself the strongest advocate of freedom of expression, it is very strange and unacceptable,” said news editor Ahmad Sheikh in an interview with the Associated Press.

“We are balanced and objective and never interfere in the news. We give all opposing views. Bin Laden is a party to the conflict and his opinions must be heard,” he added.

Since its creation in 1996, Al Jazeera has provided the region and the rest of the world with a new kind of entertainment: politicians yelling at each other during heated live debates; taboo issues, from the peace talks with Israel to sexual behaviour in the region, discussed openly on air.

It also broadcasts well-researched documentaries and up to date news reports that are not peppered with government propaganda.

The station is often the first to receive faxes from various parties, wishing to claim an attack, such as the Palestinian Hamas, or calling for a jihad against the United States, such as bin Laden on Sunday.

Sensationalist at times, the station has become the nightmare of many regimes in the region who hunt-down dissidents only to see them appear on the screen of Al Jazeera.

At different points in time, the station’s offices have been shut down momentarily in Kuwait, Egypt, Jordan for its critical reporting on domestic issues. The not so positive perspective is that the station can sometimes look like a platform for all sorts of extremists and pariahs.

Today, the TV station is proud to be the only media with a correspondent in Kabul and its overall coverage of the events following the Sep 11 has been praised. Al Jazeera correspondents in the region say they have not been given any editorial guidelines to follow in their work.

But there have been remarks that the station sometimes sounds like a mouthpiece for the Talebans especially when listening to Taysir el Alouni reporting from the Afghan capital.

The TV station’s coverage of the Palestinian uprising, which has just entered its second year, also has won acclaim. The obvious emotional bias towards the Palestinian cause did not have too much effect on the balance of the up-to-date coverage and after a brief interruption, interviews of Israeli politicians resumed.

Despite some shortcomings, the TV station remains unique in the Arab world. Perhaps because it was the pet project of the new Qatari emir al Thani who ended censorship in his country in 1995 and shut down the ministry of information, a landmark of all countries without a free press.

Most of the Al Jazeera staff were recruited from the Arabic service of BBC television when it closed down and have experience with western-style journalism. Programming of the new TV was also based on BBC formats.

With very few exceptions, all TV stations in the Arab world are state-owned, determining in advance the slant of their coverage.

The Qatari government still spends millions of dollars a year to sustain the TV station which is shunned by some companies who worry about alienating other countries if they advertise on Al Jazeera. But the station has an independent editorial policy, although no one has ever been heard on it opposing the Qatari ruling family.

And the al Jazeera attitude continues to be that if they’re getting so many complaints from all sides, then they must be getting it right.