The Age, Al-Jazeera, the Arab-language cable TV news service, has just celebrated its seventh birthday. I was there to witness it.
I had met three al-Jazeera staff at an international media conference in Dublin, where they had debated the international coverage of the Iraq war with 200 war reporters from around the world.
The al-Jazeera version of the war – with one exception – was vastly preferred to that presented by the US media.
Assistant Secretary Brian Whitman, of the US Department of Defence, was greeted with total disbelief by the veterans, who scorned his pronouncements. The al-Jazeera staff were given a hostile reception by the colleagues of several dead journalists, whose corpses had been shown graphically on the Arab service. But otherwise, their coverage was regarded as accurate and balanced.
The debate about the war went all day. Gathering socially afterwards, I wangled an invitation to visit their studio in Doha, in the tiny sheikdom of Qatar in the Gulf.
As I was visiting last Sunday, the news came through that the US had lost a helicopter to guerilla fire near Baghdad. The tired producers instantly hit top gear, scrabbling madly with their computers and mobile phones to connect their satellite feed.
As I watched the 32 monitors across the entire rear wall of the newsroom, keeping track of every major TV outlet in the world, al-Jazeera broadcast pictures from the scene in about eight minutes.
Their reporter was able to give a live-to-air summary, with the still burning wreckage in sight. Jihad Ballout, my guide, turned to me, noted that CNN, Sky, BBC World and the competition were still running a scrolling newsflash across the screen, and smilingly said: “First again.”
That is all they care about. Abused by many Western governments – and commentators – as being a mouthpiece for Osama bin Laden, al-Jazeera is also decried in some Muslim countries as being nothing but a front for the CIA. As Omar Bec Merhebi, head of news gathering, said: “We must be doing something right if everyone is abusing us.”
And what journalist in the world who was given the bin Laden tapes would not play them on their station?
With a current budget of about $A42 million, al-Jazeera has pioneered a new era of uncensored media for the Arab world. “For years Arab media was an instrument of the state,” Jihad Ballout says, “allied to the ruling classes. Arabs were spoonfed information, and opposing views were not heard. Now we provide an exchange of ideas.”
The staff of al-Jazeera come from throughout the Arab world – 22 nationalities in all. Predominantly Muslim, there are Christians and non-believers as well.
“Any Jews working here?” I asked, and was told that if I wanted to apply, and spoke Arabic, and was interested in quality journalism, I would be welcome.
The network has staff who are pro-Western, and some who are traditionalist, some right-wingers, some Marxists, pan-Arabists and fringe dwellers of all shades.
A woman at one computer is adjusting her hijab, while at the next cubicle the weather reporter is applying make-up and wearing a close-fitting and revealing Western outfit. “You employ women on screen?” I naively ask. “Yes, and pretty ones, at that,” giggles Ballout.
I was unaware that al-Jazeera is banned in several Arab countries. It has been told to “bugger off”, as Ballout tells it, from Kuwait, Bahrain and Algeria. It has never had an office in Saudi Arabia – and for as long as the Saudis insist on vetting its reports, the network will not agree to sending reporters there “on principle”.
So does al-Jazeera represent a cultural shift in the Middle East? “I don't want to sound pompous, but it is a mini-revolution,” says Ballout. A force for modernity? “Certainly. Freedom of expression is a step along the path to democracy and can co-exist with Islam, although it is not about Westernising the Arab world, as not everything about the West is good.”
I asked editor-in-chief Ibrahim Hilal about the network's editorial policies. Is there a charter or published set of guidelines for staff? “Not collected together,” he says as he hits the keyboard on his desk, unravelling a computer log of edicts issued to staff that flows for several screens.
It is in Arabic, but he rapidly and impatiently translates for me.
“Here, last week for example, I told our Ramallah bureau to stop taking statements from unknown militant groups in Palestine – they are uncorroborated and we will not run them anymore.”
And complaints to the network? “There are many – we invite anyone to come onto al-Jazeera Platform, which is a live-to-air listener feedback show – no personal attacks or abuse, but a vigorous exchange of views is guaranteed.”
And those bin Laden tapes? Propaganda for the extremists? “He has sent us others, we see no news values in them, so I refuse to just play them,” says Ibrahim Hilal.
If George Bush and his allies want to fight extremist Islam and buttress the modernists in the Arab world, he ought match the Emir of Qatar and give al-Jazeera another $42 million. But then al-Jazeera would lose its credibility in the Arab world.
Maybe President Bush should ask al-Jazeera for some advice on how to introduce some of its BBC-based journalistic values into the American popular media instead. Judging by the reception Pentagon spin-doctor Brian Whitman got from the nearly 200 seasoned journalists when he spoke in Dublin, the credibility gap is wider on his side of the Atlantic than in the Gulf.
