Reassessing al-Jazeera
Issandr El AmraniThis is an important piece on al-Jazeera. Olivier Da Lage starts off noting the commonplaces about al-Jazeera's pioneering role in Arab satellite TV and the political impact of its hard-hitting reporting and interviews. And then he makes this crucial point:
But Al Jazeera was launched in 1996 and this is 2010, 14 years later. We cannot be satisfied repeating the same clichés, however true they may be, about the pioneering role of Al Jazeera. In the course of these 14 years the media and political landscapes around Al Jazeera have profoundly changed, largely due to the role it played in disrupting the traditional media system in the Arab world. But these changes, in turn, affected Al Jazeera for two main reasons. The most obvious reason is that, in 1996, Al Jazeera's style of reporting was unchallenged in the Arab world. This is no longer true. By setting the standard, Al Jazeera created the conditions and the framework for real competition and pluralism, and everyone had to more or less adapt to the Al Jazeera model. As a result, Al Jazeera is still a figurehead and a major actor, but it no longer has a monopoly on professional and independent reporting in Arabic. The second reason might be less obvious but it is linked to the reason for which Al Jazeera was originally created. Irrespective of the sincerity of the new Qatari Emir regarding freedom of the press, Sheikh Hamad had set himself a major objective: put Qatar on the geopolitical map well beyond the size of its territory and population. Al Jazeera was instrumental in achieving this goal, as the subsequent years have proven.
By its constant interviewing of political opponents, Al Jazeera infuriated virtually all Arab heads of state, and western leaders alike. Some of its bureaux were closed, and diplomatic relations were (temporarily) severed. Throughout this turmoil, the Qatari Emir stood by Al Jazeera's management in the name of democracy and freedom of the press. Whether his interlocutors were convinced by his stance remains to be seen, but they had to accept it, and, usually after a few months, the bureaux were reopened and ambassadors sent back to their posts. The trick was not to alienate every Arab government at the same time, and one must admit that Al Jazeera did a good job of taking them on one by one, making it easier, if not easy, for the Qatari government.
Meanwhile, as Sheikh Hamad had planned, Qatar had developed a reputation for itself. Its diplomacy became active in mediating between Arab or Muslim factions, a role that previously had been the domain only of Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Despite numerous misgivings, most Arab states - notably Saudi Arabia - had reluctantly come to terms with the existence of Al Jazeera, and had normalised their relations with Qatar. Several high-level meetings between the Qatari and Saudi leadership marked this reconciliation after long-standing strains in their relationship. (In 1992, there were even armed skirmishes on their border, resulting in three deaths.)iii
Mohammed Jassim Al Ali had been Al Jazeera's managing director since its inception, and he had embodied the new brand of journalism, and its resistance to government pressure that was represented by the channel. Needless to say, he was not very popular with the Saudi or American authorities. So, when his replacement was announced in May 2003, it was difficult not to see a connection. Since then, no one disputes the fact that Al Jazeera has retained its professionalism, but many observers contend that its programmes are less offensive to Saudi Arabia or the United States than they previously had been. Many point out that the first Al Jazeera was a curious blend of Islamic conservatives, Arab nationalists, and, to some extent, free thinkers. The new Al Jazeera has definitely a more religious and conservative flavour. In a nutshell, many have the feeling that Al Jazeera has been normalised along with the normalisation of Qatar's diplomatic relations.
Al Jazeera's conservatism is indeed becoming more and more obvious — even when they interview secularists, they often counter them with several opposing points of views from the religious perspective. And it's obvious to anyone who knows some of their staff in Doha that the channel is basically infiltrated by Muslim Brothers (Egyptian and otherwise) as well as other Islamists. It's still very good, because it's professional, but it's been sad to see its leftist/nationalist side eclipse, not just for political diversity and the religion issue, because one suspects some of these old secularists were also the people most willing to be critical of state policies.
Reader Comments (10)
I see you use the commonly used "infiltrated by Muslim Brothers", I in all probability disagree with the word infiltration as it eludes that the MB are some sort of fifth column akin to an Israeli spy ring for instance.
I don't subscribe to either organisation, but simply find too many in the media industry are happy to use such expressions, to what is essentially a home grown - arab world wide - movement with several million members, and it should not come as a surprise that they are present in any institution.
I seem to remember how highly you regarded IslamOnline which "infiltrated by Muslim Brothers", in your considered opinion was a professionally run site.
Home grown or not, the dangers inherent in Al Jazeera being dominated by religious ideologues was brought home strongly in this story a few months ago about the resignation of five female presenters from the satellite channel.
http://trueslant.com/nealungerleider/2010/06/01/al-jazeeras-female-talent-resigns-over-modesty-demands/?utm_source=allactivity&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=20100601
states more than others.
Al Ahram (egyptian dialy) had a media supplement with a lot of space dedicated to the topic of the five presenters, have a read it's probably 5/6 weeks old called " ala al hawa". the contents are slanderous to say the least and understand Aljaz management have taken legal action against Al Ahram for it's contents.
Time will tell.
But gotta give credit where credit is due, and aljaz has changed the media map in the Arab world, it probably talks to a certain viewer right now, but hey aljaz opened this up so much that there are so many alternatives to choose from, " infiltrated by other ideologies / religious ideologues" we just don't talk about them!
Those presenters are still on-air, and rather than seeing it as a decision influenced by religious ideologues within Aljazeera, how about the influence of the owners/funders. essentially the gulf is a very conservative society some states more than others.
Al Ahram (egyptian dialy) had a media supplement with a lot of space dedicated to the topic of the five presenters, have a read it's probably 5/6 weeks old called " ala al hawa". the contents are slanderous to say the least and understand Aljaz management have taken legal action against Al Ahram for it's contents.
Time will tell.
But gotta give credit where credit is due, and aljaz has changed the media map in the Arab world, it probably talks to a certain viewer right now, but hey aljaz opened this up so much that there are so many alternatives to choose from, " infiltrated by other ideologies / religious ideologues" we just don't talk about them!
Sorry Amjad, I had written a long reply yesterday but it got lost. The gist of it is that considering al-Jazeera (or IslamOnline) a quality product and increasingly ideologically biased are not mutually exclusive. I think the Ikhwan websites in Egypt are well run, it does not mean that I agree with them. Moreover, I don't "infiltrate" is necessarily a conspiratorial view of things, after all it's no secret the MB does have an infiltration strategy (not dissimilar to Trotskyists) with public institutions.
I think where I need correction is in perhaps not emphasizing that the rise of conservatism in al-Jazeera may be a result of its staff orientation, but also of its management/ownership. Likewise, al-Jazeera may give negative coverage to the Egyptian regime because of Qatari-Egyptian issues. But I suspect generally it is negative because the MB people tend to give good coverage to the Egyptian MB, and there will be few people to defend the Egyptian regime among the non-Islamists anyway. In fact, it might only be management that blocks critical coverage when convenient. Same thing may go for how religious they go.
I remain a fan of Jazeera (a few serious professional mistakes they've made aside, notably in Iraq and Lebanon) and agree with you on its crucial contribution to the Arab media environment in the last 15 years.
But why do you exclude that a shift in the ideology of Al Jazeira (as a result of top executives decision or " its staff orientation") could also be a sign of un-professionalism.In a professional environment personal orientation is not suppose to factor in the news and analysis as well as management sphere (so interesting that they focused their attention on the female presenters.. so typical!). I am also surprised that no one thinks that a shift in the ideology of Aljazeira might influence the rest of the Arab media. After all we are talking about a copy cat culture and since Al Jazeira have set the standards at one point it might continue to influence other news channels (perhaps not to the same degree as before but I wouldn't be surprised that a shift in Egyptian news channel (channel 1 & 2) would follow.
A couple of questions:
1) Issandr, could I ask you to elucidate on the professional mistakes you think Al-J has made in Iraq and Lebanon?
2) How do you interpret the fact that the article was published in partnership with the Al-Jazeera centre for studies (I think it's a related institution right?)? Does this point to a certain tension between the staff and the higher management/ownership echelons? Perhaps the decision to place religious conservatives in high positions was consciously taken, but has gotten out of hand of late and cannot be curbed in a way that would not damage the credibility of the station and its perceived independence from state authorities.
Thanks
Marwa, you make a valid point.
SK, on 1) in both of these countries they have at times clearly taken the side of combatants in the conflict. There was a reason al-Jazeera decided to overhaul its ethics guide in 2004, something they made much about. Basically Jazeera at a certain point showed a lot of sympathy for Sunni insurgents. In Lebanon they have showed excessive sympathy and lack of skepticism in their treatment of Hizbullah at certain times. 2) I hadn't noticed, and I don't know!
The five presenters' walkout, reported by several sources, and the al-Ahram story (hardly surprising if al-Ahram wanted to needle Al Jazeera) are not exactly the same thing. Single, isolated events like that can be harbringers or signs; they don't mean that an ideological takeover of the channel has taken place. After all Wadah Khanfar has long been linked to the MB, but equally Al Jazeera has been attacked (and lauded) for espousing strongly pan-Arab sentiments.
But there is a lot of overlap between Arab nationalists and the MB (over Palestine, Iraq, etc.) I am more talking about the very conservative spin they might put on a story touching on religion.
In any case, it's not so much a takeover that I'm talking about rather than increased influence of conservatives.