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Trailblazing Aljazeera loses its
edge
By Iason Athanasiadis
Aljazeera is coming in for increasing criticism
in the Arab world after a spate of embarrassing
revelations that suggest it has capitulated to United
States pressure and tamed its news coverage.
The
recent appointment of new boss Waddah Khanfar at the
Qatar headquarters comes amid mounting revelations that
Aljazeera's top management chose not to air several
Osama bin Laden tapes; pulled from its news websites
caricatures the White House deemed offensive; and
removed its former general manager following US
complaints to the Emir of Qatar about the channel's
coverage of the war in Iraq.
The channel's new
attitude follows a sustained US campaign against the
broadcast of allegedly inflammatory material in the
aftermath of September 11 and comes at a time when
Aljazeera is losing viewers to Saudi and United Arab
Emirate-backed competitors al-Arabiyyah and Abu Dhabi
TV.
"We don't want to become the fanatic's
channel," Ibrahim Hillal, editor-in-chief of the channel
has said, explaining why Aljazeera did not broadcast
over six tapes in its possession said to feature bin
Laden's voice.
Another action that is prompting
commentators to accuse both channels of buckling in to
US pressure is the disappearance from Aljazeera's
coverage of the once-ubiquitous Iraqi opposition
messages calling on the US army to leave Iraq. The
anti-occupation attacks peaked last week with a series
of five simultaneous explosions in Baghdad that left 40
people dead. Yet no more messages or videos of
operations have made their way onto the coverage of the
broadcaster, a practice popularized by bin Laden and the
Lebanese Hezbollah.
"Many ordinary Iraqis are
beginning to get browned off with these daily bombs and
outrages," says Chris Forrester, editor of Middle East
Broadcast and Satellite magazine "The change of policy
at Aljazeera may reflect what the man on the street is
feeling."
The development comes after the
US-backed Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) accused
Aljazeera and al-Arabiyyah of broadcasting "poison" and
banned their correspondents from government offices and
conferences. This followed an initial blanket ban on
reporting from Baghdad that was apparently rescinded.
"Maybe they have made a trade-off decision,"
says Abdallah Schleiffer, director of the Adham Center
for Television Journalism at the American University in
Cairo. "It's possible they thought, 'We don't want to
jeopardize our coverage here by covering stories that
are vital but would mean us losing our access'."
Shortly after the IGC ban, a cartoon on
Aljazeera's Arabic and English-language news sites
appeared commemorating the second September 11
anniversary. Its depiction of two towers crumbling, to
be replaced by twin petrol pumps, elicited such a
vehement US reaction, Aljazeera sources say, that the
White House woke up the Emir of Qatar in the middle of
night to spell out its outrage. He, in turn, called the
station's sleeping manager and had him pull the
offending article. Now, cartoons by the Aljazeera
Internet artist have to be cleared by management before
they are posted on the site.
Also in September,
Kuwaiti newspaper As-Siyasa quoted a Gulf diplomatic
source in Washington as saying that a series of meetings
were held at the Security Intelligence Committee of the
House of Representatives reviewing the Aljazeera effect
on Arab audiences and US-Qatar relations. The talks
resulted, according to the paper, in a strong
recommendation to the Qatari government that it "take
urgent steps to consider closing Aljazeera" or
"substitute the current staff with moderate and neutral
ones".
The alleged meeting followed the sacking
of Mohamed Jassem and came less than a month before the
appointment last week of Waddah Khanfar to the post of
director. Jassem's dismissal - a few days after US
President George W Bush's historic visit to Qatar in May
- prompted a blizzard of rumors across the Arab world
that he was sacrificed at the altar of US-Qatari
harmony, following American complaints about Aljazeera's
coverage of the war.
Khanfar's appointment has
been met cautiously. A former Baghdad bureau chief, the
new director is one of a select group of journalists to
have interviewed chief US civil administrator in Iraq L
Paul Bremer.
"I think Khanfar's appointment will
be more a case of gentle touches on the rudder, rather
than huge, 180-degree U-turns," says Forrester.
The internal changes Aljazeera is undergoing
come at a time of wider developments in its regional
backyard. The effect of the "Aljazeera dividend" -
increased freedom in news coverage on a pan-Arab scale -
is on display in neighboring United Arab Emirates.
There, a host of pan-Arab and Lebanese Arabic satellite
channels are taking advantage of the country's openness
to challenge Aljazeera's dominance.
"The big
impact comes from the arrival of al-Arabiyyah," says
Forrester. "Aljazeera is on an informal advertising ban
in the kingdom and Saudi advertisers will not advertise
there. The arrival of new stations that do not suffer
from this ban makes the commercial existence of
Aljazeera even more difficult. That won't mean its
funding is going to dry up tomorrow, as its government
subsidy has been extended [beyond the initial five-year
period], but it will make things more difficult."
A less direct blow to Aljazeera is the effect
that the scrum of satellite stations fighting over the
Arab viewer has had on Aljazeera's dominant market
share. Abu Dhabi TV's no-nonsense reporting and Saudi
giant al-Arabiyya's smooth graphics and heavy budgets
have been drawing wider audiences away from a channel
that is still capable of beating hands-down its news and
entertainment rivals, claiming up to 40 percent of
audience share.
"Aljazeera has seen many of its
leading journalists leave, one was killed in Baghdad and
other rivals have come onto the scene," says Forrester.
"In its defense, it has tried to stay true to that which
has given it its reputation: objectivity with a BBC
sheen of professionalism. By and large, al-Arabiyya
probably gets a favorable response in the kingdom
itself, but Aljazeera certainly maintains its number one
position and is what everyone is talking about. While
people are dipping into al-Arabiyyah, they're not
leaving Aljazeera yet."
(Copyright 2003 Asia
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