US: Al-Jazeera to launch English channel in West

Critics say new channel will not be as hard-hitting as Arabic version

The Straits Times
Saturday, June 4, 2005

By John R. Bradley

Preparations for the launch of Al-Jazeera's English-language news channel, with a major regional bureau in Kuala Lumpur, are nearing completion.
 
The English-language operation, which will be headquartered in London and Washington, will be run independently of its controversial Arabic-language sister station.

The Qatar-based news organisation has many times incurred the wrath of Washington for what critics call its sensationalist coverage of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, and for airing video statements by Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

It said in a statement that the new English-language station will similarly aim to counteract "unbalanced reporting" on Arab and Muslim issues by Western networks such as CNN and the BBC.

However, many analysts doubt this.

They point out, for instance, that the organisation's English-language website, english.aljazeera.net, has hardly any of the anti-American rhetoric that is par for the course on its Arabic-language sister site.

"I think a lot of people are going to be very disappointed because the English-language news channel will be a pale imitation of its parent channel," said Ms Yvonne Ridley, a British journalist who worked as a senior editor on Al-Jazeera's English-language website.

"The new station will have complete independence - administratively, financially and editorially - from the parent organisation. And it will have a mainly English-speaking news team," she told The Straits Times. Its main aim is to make the news channel commercially viable so that it can eventually be privatised. It will be the acceptable face of the Muslim world for a Western audience."

Professor Asad Abukhalil, who teaches political science at California State University in Stanislaus and who is a regular guest on Al-Jazeera's Arabic-language channel, similarly said he has noticed "that the English version of Al-Jazeera's website is less 'Arab nationalist'."

He added that the staff of the new station "will include many non-Arabs, who are far less shaped by core Arab or Islamic issues".

Fans of Al-Jazeera's Arabic-language channel nevertheless say that if it in any way reflects its parent station, Al-Jazeera International could still prove to be a breath of fresh air.

It could "bring to American consumers a perspective that is unavailable in the contextless and ahistorical pablum which passes for TV news in the US", said Mr Khalid Rashidi, the Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University.

He is also a frequent guest on Al-Jazeera.

"Simply showing the images from Iraq, Palestine and the rest of the Middle East which do not make it on to American TV news would be a great service," he told The Straits Times.

"But I am afraid that Al-Jazeera may tailor its product to its audience for fear of confronting Americans with unpleasant realities that their own government denies and that most American TV news programmes avoid mentioning."

Prof Abukhalil agreed that Al-Jazeera International may still "fill a void that some people have felt since 9/11, when many US news channels became patriotic and less likely to critically probe the government's decisions and actions".

But he said that he "doubted the English Al-Jazeera would succeed if the same people in charge of Al-Jazeera Arabic are put in charge".

"Arab governments and organisations have a history of failing to understand how to speak or appeal to the West. There is a possibility that the Al-Jazeera International may be no more than a Qatari government attempt to please the US. In that case, it will fail miserably."

Date Posted: 6/4/2005