Al Jazeera does ‘Fair and Balanced’
December 9, 2006
In an apparent bid to gain wider access, or a reflection of the influence of its cast of newsmen from western mainstream media, Al Jazeera International seems to have gone ‘fair and balanced’. This news report would be very much at home on BBC or CNN in its “officials say” approach to Journalism. Notice the absence of the Iraqi perspective.
The Middle East scholar Juan Cole raises the question whether “this coverage resulted from the US military trying harder with the Arabic press or from a change in policy at Aljazeera”.
There were already signs of a shift when complains were raised about an attempt by pro-Israel editors to influence Al Jazeera International’s coverage. Some of the fears were validated on the day of its launch when its correspondent in the occupied Palestinian territories, a former CNN reporter, repeatedly spoke of Israeli “retaliations” (This, remember, is the CNN/BBC/Fox framing of the conflict, where Israelis always ‘retaliate’ to something the Palestinians have done, not vice versa, and the occupation doesn’t exist).
As Al Jazeera matures as a news organization one can only hope that it does so without compromising its distinctive critical edge. If its vapid, uncritical and counter-analytical journalism that audiences were looking for, it is already in ample supply on BBC and CNN.
