Vice-president of the Arab-American
Action Network and a well-known media analyst, Ali
Abunimah regularly writes public letters to the
media, coordinates campaigns, and appears on a variety
of national and international news programs as a
commentator on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
He is one of the founders of The Electronic Intifada.
Hussein Ibish is communications director of the
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. This
article first appeared in the Los
Angeles Times on 22 October 2001.
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A
mong the more remarkable developments
since Sept. 11 is that the Western monopoly on global
news production has met its first serious challenge
from a Third World source. The improbable upstart
is Al Jazeera, a 24-hour Arabic language satellite
news channel from the tiny Gulf emirate of Qatar.
The U.S. may control the Afghani air space, but
in this war the airwaves belong to Al Jazeera.
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Since its founding in 1996, Al
Jazeera has created a revolution in Arab news media
and public opinion, emerging as the first independent,
professional pan-Arab news outlet. Now that Al Jazeera
is the primary international news organization providing
serious coverage from inside Afghanistan and is
commanding the attention of Arab public opinion--a
key constituency in this most political of conflicts--the
station's coverage and its audience have become
more important than any other in the world. If CNN
was made by the 1991 Gulf War, the current conflict
represents a similar global coming of age for Al
Jazeera.
Because of its reporting and free-wheeling
call-in talk shows, Al Jazeera has evoked the wrath
of almost every Arab government. Now U.S. officials
have joined the love-hate club, actively trying
to alter Al Jazeera's content and condemning its
coverage while demanding to be interviewed on its
programs. Even more intense has been the Al Jazeera-bashing
in the Western press, which is, at the same time,
heavily relying on news and footage gathered by
Al Jazeera from the war zone. During the most dramatic
moments of the war so far, news sources such as
CNN and ABC simply morph into a rebroadcast and
translation service for Al Jazeera and then squabble
over rights to its coverage. Click to continue reading the article. |
