Under US Pressure, Aljazeera loses its edge
Abu-Alwafa
uploaded 05 Nov 2003
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initial blanket ban on reporting from Baghdad that was apparently rescinded.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."
Source: Asia Times