Arab TV Journalism

Arab TV Journalism, has recently celebrated 10 years on air (from AISA*) Al Jazeera is the creation of the Emir of Qatar, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa al- Thani who brought unemployed Arab journalists ti his Gulf state. The Sheik was concerned about the region=s stagnating politics and rising extremism, which made him distance himself and his emirate from Saudi Arabia, his Wahabite neighbour. The Emir devised Qatar=s first constitution, held elections, appointed a woman to Cabinet, modernised his education system and allowed the building of Christian churches.

Al Jazeera=s popularity throughout the Arab world brought Qatar status and diplomatic influence. The Emir has also become one of America=s closest allies in the region, despite the critique of its policies. Al Jazeera has won thousands of viewers by reporting on the Palestinian intifadeh of 2000, the Afghanistan and Iraqi wars since 2001 and the recent Israeli invasion of Lebanon.The channel=s executives say that the channel simply reports the truth and a sister channel, Al Jazeera International has begun. Its English language broadcasts will expand its audience far beyond the Middle East-according to Khanfar, who will head both channels they will give a voice to yhe voiceless .AJI has a crew of 500, mostly young, journalists. Its main audience is likely to be in Europe, Asia and India-places where English is widely spoken.

For the first time, independent journalists deliver uncensored news reports rather than government propaganda and lies.

Initially various Arab rulers complained bitterly to the Emir about painful criticism of their regimes or simply banished Al Jazeera=s reporters from their countries The current Iraqi Agovernment@ closed its Gaghdad bureau in 2004, and Saudi Arabia never allowed one to open there.

U US forces fired on Al Jazeer=s offices in Kabul in 2001 and in Baghdad in 2003, killing correspondent Tariq Ayyoub. Sami al-Hajj, a cameraman for the channel, was arrested in Pakistan in late 2001 and has been held in Guantanamo Bay ever since, i.e. at America=s pleasure.

Khanfar is a Palestinian who joined Al Jazeera in 1997. He had spent 12 tears studying and researching in Africa before that. He subsequently covered the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and when Washington complained that Al Jazeera misrepresented US policy he held firm, standing on the channel=s professionalism.

As the ABC comes under worsening political pressure, and SBS leavens the neo-liberal environment with periodic whiffs of sulphur, not to speak of the decline of the BBC=s political reporting, Al Jazeera and AJI might blow a fresh breeze of irreverent, truthful journalism our way.

* AISA is the Australian International Studies Association.)