CNN dreams of viewer base like Al-Jazeera's

[Martin]

http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20030315/UHOUSN/TPColumnists/

By WILLIAM HOUSTON
Saturday, March 15, 2003 - Page A11

Imad Khadduri lives near Toronto, but gets his news from a satellite television network based in Qatar.
Several thousand Canadians tune into Al-Jazeera, even though they need a black-market satellite dish system to receive the Arab-language news channel. It's worth the inconvenience and expense, viewers say.
"The quality of Al-Jazeera's news and public affairs programs would shame any CNN show," said Dr. Khadduri, a nuclear scientist who left Iraq with his family in 1998. "That's all I watch."
Odai Sirri, a journalist from Vancouver who works for Al-Jazeera, says the network's reporting on the war in Afghanistan as well as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been more explicit than anything seen on North American television.
"It is shocking, disturbing and very sad," Mr. Sirri said. "Also shocking is the fact that nobody sees this footage outside the Arab world."
This may change in the coming months as federal broadcast regulators consider an application from Canadian cable operators to carry Al-Jazeera. But a decision from Ottawa is not likely to come before the fall.
Al-Jazeera's visceral, in-your-face journalism creates as many critics as fans. It has been denounced as pro-Palestinian and anti-American, though others see it the other way around, as pro-Israel and with ties to the CIA.
"People run out of things to attack Al-Jazeera [for]," said Jihad Ali Ballout, an executive with the network. "I mean, at one stage we were the channel of Osama bin Laden, the channel of the Israeli Mossad, the channel of Saddam Hussein and [that of others].
"Yes, we are bin Laden's channel because we believe it's important to cover his news. We are, as well, a Palestinian channel because these guys are in conflict. What we try to do is show or reflect as comprehensive a picture as we can."
A source of enmity from Arab leaders is a popular show called Opposite Direction, in which two guests debate issues and take calls from viewers. The format may sound conventional, but the telecast is live and goes to air without the usual seven-second delay. And the exchange of opinion makes it revolutionary in the Arabic world.
One night, an Iraqi viewer called in and condemned Kuwait's emirs. Al-Jazeera's reporters were subsequently expelled from Kuwait, a source said.
"Before Al-Jazeera, the Arab media, traditionally, was subservient to authority," Mr. Ballout said. "When Al-Jazeera came, all of this changed, which perhaps partly explained why governments are not happy with us."
A specific complaint, from Israel and the West, is the description of Palestinian suicide bombers as martyrs. Mr. Ballout said news presenters do not use that term, but the network's policy is to report all news releases unedited.
The bin Laden tapes made Al-Jazeera famous, but should a news organization be conveying, unedited, a terrorist's message?
"If any leader had a news conference, we wouldn't think of editing his statements," Mr. Ballout said. "Put yourself in our position, and you get the opportunity to scoop the whole international media scene. Would you not do it?"
Less debatable is Al-Jazeera's influence in the Arab world and its clout internationally. World leaders do not accede to interviews on the network -- they ask for them. Yesterday, U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice visited Al-Jazeera's Washington bureau to discuss Iraq.
The network was launched in 1996, initially financed by a grant of $150-million (U.S.) from the Emir of Qatar, who deposed his father a year earlier and is viewed as progressive. It broadcasts 24 hours a day to an audience that reaches 55 million. Comparatively, cable news channels in the United States draw about one million viewers.
Outside the Middle East, it is watched by as many as 10 million. It has roughly 200,000 viewers in North America. The network employs 620 at its Doha headquarters and posts reporters at 38 locations worldwide.

 

[justint]

Al-Jazeera rules. What CNN was back in it's heyday before the pander to the pop culture crowd took over. I HATE CONNIE CHUNG.