In defense of al-Jazeera from MSNBC

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Goncalo <goncalo () mail eunet pt>
Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2003 11:06:23 +0000
To: dave () farber net
Subject: For IP: In defense of al-Jazeera


For IP if you like. I highly recommend reading:

"In defense of al-Jazeera"
http://www.msnbc.com/news/643471.asp?cp1=1

Regards
Goncalo


 
In defense of al-Jazeera

Attacking the messenger, and our message at the same time

By Michael Moran
MSNBC

LONDON, Oct. 18, 2001 ‹ One day in April 1996, as I headed for my desk in
the newsroom at BBC Television Centre, I noticed an odd gathering of
journalists in the space beside ours ‹ the newsroom of BBC Arabic
Television. There were tear-streaked faces, hugs among staff members and
anger as the 250 journalists were told that the network, a BBC partnership
with a Saudi company, would be shut down because the Saudis tried to censor
a documentary on executions in their puritanical country. It was a
devastating defeat for a brave group of journalists.
        
 FOR MANY of BBC Arabic¹s staff, that day marked the death of a long-held
dream: uncensored news for the Middle East, reports shorn of the crazy
conspiracy theories, anti-Israel sentiments and sniveling praise for venal
regimes that is standard fare on state-controlled broadcast networks from
Algiers to Islamabad.
       Jamil Azar, then with the BBC¹s Arabic service, told me later how
wrenching it was for so many on the staff who worked so hard at something
they truly believed would change attitudes in the region. ³We understand the
BBC¹s position,² Azar told me. ³But the gap it will leave will be
tremendous.²
       
BORN FROM THE ASHES
       As it turned out, the gap was quickly filled. From the ashes of BBC
Arabic rose al-Jazeera, a satellite channel funded by the Emir of Qatar and
other Arab moderates who had recognized during BBC Arabic¹s short life that
the long-term interests of Islam would be served best by truth rather than
censorship. Unfortunately, that kind of foresight temporarily escaped the
White House, opening the United States up to charges of hypocrisy at
precisely the time when the United States needs to be seen taking every
possible step to be up-front about its goals.
    

    


               The first time most Americans heard the name al-Jazeera was
Sunday, Oct. 7, the day U.S. and British forces began hitting the Taliban
and its ³guests² in Afghanistan. The timing was almost surely accidental ‹
Western journalists had spent three weeks expecting an attack at any moment.
But the impact on the White House was undeniable, and suddenly Washington
reverted to the kind of bullying that had not been evident in the buildup to
the attack.
       Secretary of State Colin Powell denounced al-Jazeera for airing
³vitriolic, irresponsible kinds of statements² when it broadcast a
videotaped statement by suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden praising the
Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.
       The CIA leaked its concern that bin Laden might be sending secret
messages through these taped statements. Condoleeza Rice, the national
security adviser, called and visited with top American network and newspaper
representatives, urging them to consider the dangers of airing bin Laden¹s
views. On the shallower media outlets around the U.S., al-Jazeera suddenly
found itself being equated with the former Communist mouthpiece Pravda or
Hitler¹s National Zeitung.
       
REALITY CHECK
       The truth could hardly be more different.
       Today, al-Jazeera is staffed by many of the same journalists I saw
weeping in London that day, including Azar. It is the lone Arabic broadcast
outlet to put truth and objectivity above even its survival. For its pains
during the five years of its existence, it has been attacked by virtually
every government in the Middle East.
The chairman of Qatar's al-Jazeera satellite TV network, Sheikh Hamad bin
Thamer al-Khalifa, talks to the media last week.           The network¹s
bureaus around the region are periodically closed because of al-Jazeera¹s
insistence in airing stories about the corruption of government officials in
Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria and elsewhere. Israeli officials and journalists,
all but banned from other Middle Eastern networks, are staples on
al-Jazeera, whose motto is ³We get both sides of the story.²
 To truly understand how wrong it is to attack al-Jazeera, one needs to
consider two points.
       First, that to be anything but a lackey in the Arab media is to
invite beatings, torture or death. The Society for the Protection of
Journalists¹ annual list of reporters killed in the line of duty is littered
with the corpses of moderate, tolerant Arab journalists who have stood up to
their bullying dictatorships, on the one hand, or their puritanical mullahs,
on the other.
       Second, the fact that bin Laden¹s zealous murderers chose al-Jazeera
as a way to get their message out has very little to do with the fact that
al-Jazeera is the Middle East¹s only free news network. Did the rebel Irish
Republican Army send coded messages to the BBC and the Reuters news agency
claiming responsibility for its bombings because it thought British
journalists would be sympathetic? Did Saddam Hussein choose CNN as a conduit
for his own propaganda during the Persian Gulf War because he took a shine
to Peter Arnett? Of course not, though some ‹ most memorably former
Republican Sen. Alan Simpson, claimed so at the time.
       The reason all of these outlets get the story is because they earn
it. Al-Jazeera worked hard covering the Afghan story when the very notion of
doing so would have been dismissed at an American news meeting. It is
important to remember that the list of American journalists who have set
foot in Afghanistan over the past five years is short, indeed. It¹s not that
it wasn¹t possible: My MSNBC.com colleague Preston Mendenhall did it just
this spring and produced our series Pariah Nation.

       Still, we couldn¹t get NBC to air any of the hours of video he shot
while there. It simply didn¹t fit the mold of what NBC executives thought
would garner the largest possible audience.
       In contrast, al-Jazeera ‹ and the BBC, until its correspondent was
ejected by the Taliban ‹ stayed in Kabul through the 1990s to cover a civil
war that has been raging, in part with American weaponry, for more than a
decade. So do we blame al-Jazeera for covering this war? As Fox would say,
ŒYou decide.¹ 
       
LESSONS LEARNED?
       Happily, the attacks the Bush administration launched on al-Jazeera
recently backfired so completely that Washington quickly shifted tactics,
suddenly granting long-denied interviews with officials like Powell and
Rice. Now, there¹s even talk of buying time on al-Jazeera to broadcast some
kind of paid political advertisement about the conflict. To many, after the
U.S. efforts to squash al-Jazeera, this will be lumped into the same
category as the bin Laden campfire video: propaganda.
       

Photojournalist Harriet Logan's look at the suffering of Afghan women under
Taliban rule.       For al-Jazeera, the lesson is somewhat different. The
Bush administration had a good point when it complained that the entire bin
Laden video was aired without context. It¹s not just a matter of demanding
equal time. Even in the airiest confines of journalism¹s ivory towers, the
implications of what is being broadcast matters. You can¹t shout fire in a
crowded theater ‹ at least in an American one ‹ and expect to get away
without consequence for the deadly stampede that ensues. Al-Jazeera¹s
broadcasts since have taken pains to put things into better perspective.
Unfortunately, because they¹re the only game in Kabul, often American
networks grab al-Jazeera¹s video images but don¹t have the perspective to
add because they¹re not on the ground.
 That brings us to the final lesson here: what passes for news in America.
For the past 10 years, roughly since the idiotic O.J. Simpson trial, the
language of marketing has entered American newsrooms like a badly targeted
cruise missile. Talk of plot lines and demographics, sexiness and
³water-cooler² appeal have polluted a mission that is protected by its own
constitutional amendment. Celebrity journalists interview celebrity dimwits
about their sex lives, while American foreign policy is left running on
auto-pilot. 
       The hard truth is that the U.S. media left America as unprepared for
these terrorist attacks as any Air Force general or CIA bureaucrat. As we
dropped bombs on Iraq for 10 years running ‹ justified or not ‹ the U.S.
media failed to report on it. Then suddenly, on Sept. 11, we think ³We¹re at
war² when in fact there hasn¹t been a day since the Gulf War ended when an
American aircraft hasn¹t locked onto a target with a missile or bomb. We
were at war, it¹s just that the media didn¹t think it was interesting enough
to tell you about it.
       That¹s our lesson to learn.
       
       Michael Moran is senior producer for special projects at MSNBC.com.
He worked as the BBC¹s U.S. affairs analyst in London from 1993-96.

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