Panelists discuss Al Jazeera media

Al Jazeera New York Bureau Chief Abderrahim Foukara, Near Eastern studies professor Michael Doran GS '97 and politics professor Amaney Jamal debated whether the Al Jazeera television network should be criticized for biased reporting or praised for its political independence in a discussion Tuesday night.

The event "Al Jazeera: How it sees the world" was part of the second Goodman Lecture on Media and Global Affairs and drew a full crowd to Dodds Audiotorium and the Robertson Bowls.

Foukara credited Al Jazeera for accomplishing what few Arabic language stations had done before.

"[The station] is a new window into a style of open debate that had always been stifled in the region," he said.

Before Al Jazeera's inception in 1994, Foukara explained, national progaganda stations were the only source of news for average Arab citizens. As an example, he said that out of every 30-minute newscast in Libya, 20 minutes were devoted to outlining the daily activities of that nation's leader, Colonel Muammar Qaddafi.

While Doran agreed with Foukara that Al Jazeera has established itself as part of a nascent free press in the Middle East, he criticized the network for having "a not-so-wonderful side."

Doran attacked the network for its focus on anti-American and anti-Israeli stories, and said that the U.S. military has a decidedly negative impression of Al Jazeera. He cited a senior military official who described to him an event in late March when an Al Jazeera television crew refused to report on a skirmish between U.S. troops and the Taliban after learning that the American soldiers had won.

In a heated exchange, Foukara responded to Doran by saying that the American media sometimes displayed a similar bias in the opposite, pro-American direction.

"The American media depicted the war in Iraq, with its pictures of embedded journalists, as a game," Foukara said.

He showed an excerpt from the Fox News Network and commented that a journalist like Geraldo Rivera saw his role as being "opinionated, in which he presents his views and the views he thinks his audience wants to hear."

As part of his defense of Al Jazeera, Foukara supported the network's decision to air the infamous bin Laden tapes: "In the same way we put Donald Rumsfeld or Colin Powell on, Osama bin Laden or the Iraqi insurgency deserve a showing," he said.

However, Foukara noted that decisions to air the most recent bin Laden tapes have been difficult, and the result of significant deliberation. He said the network had several consultations with the Bush administration before it decided to air segments of the November 2004 tape.

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In addition to debating Al Jazeera's merits and shortcomings, the panel also outlined the history of the network. George Goodman — founder of the Goodman lectures and chair of the Adam Smith Global Television network — said much of the success of Al Jazeera can be attributed to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).

He said 160 of the founding reporters of Al Jazeera were formerly affiliated with the BBC.

"The BBC trained a coterie of journalists who account for the big splash the network was able to make in the Middle East," Goodman said. In his view, the network also benefited from patronage by the crown prince of Qatar, who has his nation's valuable natural gas resources at his disposal.

The panelists agreed that regardless of one's opinions on Al Jazeera, the influence of the Pan-Arab network should not be underestimated.

In a recent global survey, Al Jazeera was found to be one of the five most recognizable brand names. "Microsoft was on the list while CNN was not," Jamal said.