Al Jazeera

Arriving at the Al Jazeera compound was a stark contrast to the television stations I have been to in the States. The stations property seems to cover acres of land and is highly guarded and surrounded by fencing.

The entryway of the AJE (Al Jazeera English) network serves as a museum to former employees and professes the journalistic beliefs on which the station was founded.

The mission and vision statements glow underneath the tables in the room. Their motto:

“the opinion and the other opinion”

 

 

 

The vest worn by Tariq Ayoub, an al-Jazeera cameraman in Baghdad, when he was killed when a US missile struck the Qatar-based TV station’s office in Baghdad on April 8, 2003.

Ihtisham Hibatullah , senior planner of communications and corporate relations, provided a thorough background on the station before escorting the group of American students upstairs to the boardroom.

Hibatullah was joined by Richard Lewis, program director for the network and Satnam Matharu the head of international and media relations.

Lewis told the group that AJ provides the majority of the news regarding the Middle East to the rest of the world. He said, “They give a voice to those that have long been without.”

With AJ’s conception in 1996 they have been able to gain a leg up in the region over all other news networks. For instance, they are the only international presence in the Gaza region.

“We have earned our stripes,” said Lewis, “AJ provides an alternative service that all people should be aware of.”

The network will be taking a massive leap forward in Western relations with the launch of it’s first 24 hour a day network in the U.S. The station will air in Washington, D.C. on July 1. 20 other cities throughout the country will also carry the network on smaller scales. 

Matharu explained that while AJ would enjoy a larger presence in the American market, cable companies have extreme control over the programming that is aired. Programs are tested for commercial profitability and then picked up, or passed on. 

Matharu went on to explain that AJ was loved by U.S. administrations from 1996-2001. “We were seen as taking the tape off of peoples mouthes and the Arab people finally had a voice.”

Unfortunately this quickly led to the Bush administration and their subsequent dealings with the network. “We continued to show both sides. We showed the missiles going up, but we also showed them coming down,” said Lewis. He went to discuss the images that were being shown on U.S. stations and how they compared to those of an old video game. 

Matharu told the students that when they received the first Bin Laden tape, following Sept.11, it was a 45 min which they cut down to 2 min. “In this region Bin Laden tapes were news.”

Donald Rumsfeld accused AJ of supporting and promoting terrorist propaganda, a label that the network is still trying to peel off today.

“It has been a very difficult perception to change,” said Matharu.

The AJ network is founded on the belief that all stories need balance for truth, opinion, and safety. “Most right minded people accept balance and arguments to any story,” said Lewis. 

AJ currently has the highest credibility rating in the Arab world, according to the latest Nielsen ratings. 

Lewis feels that AJ prides itself on being a journalism of depth. A recent Pew study found that there has been a decline in the quality of news coming from the West due to commercialization. “We don’t want that,”said Lewis, “Fox News is like Jerry Springer meets journalism.”

When news is decontextualized it means nothing, AJ feels it is providing that context to all of its stories. AJ has 69 bureaus across the globe. “Our reporters are bold. They live and breathe the culture. They report with a level of authenticity that parachute journalists cannot,” said Lewis. 

“Journalism is more important than medicine in some ways,” said

Matharu believes that reporters can change the course of history by covering world events. After journalists started to bring home photographs to America from the Vietnam war, the people’s perception of that war was forever altered. 

“The world is in a big mess, so we can change that. Journalism is more important than medicine in some ways,” said Matharu.

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