Al-Jazeera editor says station presents all sides

Yasser Thabet, Al-Jazeera television editor: “The important point is to put these matters on the table and discuss them. We know the importance of credibility, and we are willing to pay the price.”

5:09 p.m., April 6, 2004--Before the advent of Al-Jazerra, the most popular satellite news channel in the Middle East, viewers in that region of the world had to rely on state-controlled media broadcasts for news of what was happening in their countries and the region.

This changed in 1996, when the government of Quatar, one of the world’s smallest countries, with a population of less than 700,000, poured $150 million of its oil revenues into what would become the most controversial broadcast outlet in the Middle East.

“All the local broadcast media were controlled by the governments of Arab states,” Yasser Thabet, Al-Jazeera broadcast editor, said. “It was expected that because of this, viewers in the region would accept anything that was put to them. To get another view, they had to go to foreign media outlets like the BBC.”

Thabet made his remarks to an audience of about 200 during a lecture on “Images, News and Al-Jazerra” on Monday evening, April 5, in Multipurpose Room B in the Trabant University Center.

Al-Jazerra, Thabet noted, started small, with a modest 6-hours a day of programming, but within three years, the broadcast station had grown to a 12-hour daily schedule and eventually expanded to its current 24-hour programming schedule.

Besides providing live news coverage of events in one of the world’s most volatile regions, the station broke new ground in the Arab world by providing a forum for discussing topical issues such as poverty and the role of women.

“The old policy was ‘close the door that causes the draft,’” Thabet said. “Al-Jazerra discussed issues that would never have been discussed by the other media.”

While presenting clips of several live discussion programs that aired on Al-Jazerra, Thabet said that because certain issues had never been confronted before by many government representatives and religious figures, on-air guests would often walk out of the programs in frustration and disgust.

“These are some of the problems we faced at the beginning,” Thabet said. “Some people were not accustomed to tackling these issues, and they were embarrassed when they were confronted by people with new ideas and opinions.”

While Al-Jazeera’s efforts at providing independent coverage of events through live broadcasts from places like Afghanistan and Iraq gave the station credibility in the Arab world, it also drew the ire of governments in the region and beyond.

“Some Western governments said that we were against them,” Thabet said. “Governments in the Middle East also made some protests.”

Many Middle East governments also sought to use Al-Jazerra as a tool to promote their points of view, an approach that sometimes backfired, Thabet said.

Tabet: “We have gained more than a million subscribers in Europe and 100,000 additional subscribers in the United States. Al-Jazeera is doing its job.”

“We gave them a chance to present their views,” Thabet said. “We also aired opinions that were against them.”

Despite direct opposition by governments to its coverage of events and indirect methods of intimidation, such as getting advertisers to pull their ads, Al-Jazeera still manages to reach more than 35 million viewers.

“We have gained more than a million subscribers in Europe and 100,000 additional subscribers in the United States,” Thabet said. “Al-Jazeera is doing its job.”

Thabet said that in the days before the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Al-Jazeera was “the darling of the West,” with many U.S. government officials praising the network as an example of how a media outlet should operate.

The situation changed in the days after Oct. 7, 2001, when the United States and its allies launched its attack in Afghanistan in retaliation for the terrorist attacks in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania, Thabet said.

“When the war in Afghanistan began, we were the only news organization based there, and we showed pictures of civilians being killed, and this displeased U.S. officials,” Thabet said. “We don’t edit—we run it live. We are trying to cover the news as it is. We believe that twisting the facts is wrong and that it is important to run news with no manipulation.”

Besides official displeasure over its coverage of events in Afghanistan, Al-Jazeera also generated negative public opinion in the United States after its airing of a videotape of al Queda leader Osama bin Laden.

The penalty for pursuing such an approach, Thabet said, has been the bombing of Al-Jazeera’s station in Afghanistan and the death of a correspondent during bombing attacks on Al-Jazeera’s offices during the war in Iraq.

“...If you don’t talk about something, this does not mean that it doesn’t exist. The important point is to put these matters on the table and discuss them,” Thabet said. “We know the importance of credibility, and we are willing to pay the price.”

The lecture was sponsored by UD’s Center for International Studies’ visiting scholars program, the Center for Community Research and Service, the School of Urban Affairs and Public Policy and the College of Human Services, Education and Public Policy.

Article by Jerry Rhodes
Photos by Duane Perry

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