My dad was talking about this yesterday. It happened 2 months ago. I was not aware of it. Were you?
In May the Amir of Qatar sacked the entire management board, including Wadah Khanfar, its director. In the turbulent politics of the Middle East this would not be considered unusual, except that the new chief is none other than Hamad Abdul Aziz al-Kuwari, a former Qatari ambassador to Washington, who is known for his close links with both Republican and Democratic politicians in the US. His appointment is seen as a sop to US sensitivities because the Americans had been exerting pressure on the Qatari government to rein in Al-Jazeera, claiming that its coverage of American crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq was undermining its policies. Other appointees include Mahmood Shamam, another pro-US figure, and the new managing director, Ahmad Kholeifi. Insiders at the station say that Kholeifi has instituted sweeping changes that will affect news coverage drastically, undermining what little independence the station enjoyed.
I’m not sure if the coverage now is any different now than it was previously. Two months is still a short period though to spot a real change. Anyways, just letting you know.
SudaneseThinker
SudaneseThinker
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Judging by how Al-Jazeera covered (and still covers) the Lebanese army’s war against Fatah-al-Islam, little if anything has changed so far. Al-Jazeera has managed become the most hated news network in Lebanon, if Lebanese blogs are anything to go by.
“Americans had been exerting pressure on the Qatari government to rein in Al-Jazeera, claiming that its coverage of American crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq was undermining its policies. ”
I somehow doubt that Americans claimed that Al-Jazeera’;s coverage of “American crimes” in Afghanistan and Iraq was undermining its policies.
In fact, I openly declare that the source lies.
What I find more likely is that the Americans claimed that Al-Jazeera’s lies about Afghanistan and Iraq (and Lebanon) were undermining America, Iraqi, amd Afghani (and Lebanese) policies.
In fact, didn’t the Iraq government declare Al-Jazeera illegal in Iraq?
And as Roman says, Al-Jazeera is hated in Lebanon. Perhaps Qatar didn’t want to be hated in Iraq and Lebanon? (Afghanistan really doesn’t matter.)
I find it deeply disturbing that a site that lies would call itself “Muslimedia”.
Associating Islam with lies should be regarded as immoral just as associating Islam with terrorism (something the Iranians will have to account for).
In fact, Al Jazeera’s coverage in the past couple of months has been exhibiting fundamental, albeit subtle diversions from the norm. I say this with authority having been in the Arab media industry for over 3 decades. 2 glaring examples demonstrate my premise: the coverage of the Nahr Al Bared miloitary conflict in south Lebanon between the Lebanese army and the Fath Al Islam group has been changed dramatically, with the channel restricting its coverage to very limited on-the-scene reporter dispatches. Compare this with the begining of the conflict when Al Jazeea was almost up in arms reporting yet another ME conflict with an Islamic angle. Another change in the coverage is Al Jazeera had to temper its coverage of the Fath-Hamas conflict in the Gaza Strip. It is not a secret that some of the senior editors (and some managers also) at Al Jazeera have a visible soft spot for Hamas (irrespective of whether Hamas is in the right or wrong; I happen to view the latest endeavour by Hamas to be a pre-emptive strike against what the US was planning in the form of executing a wide reaching coup detat against an elected govenment). However, close scrutiny of the coverage give ample proof that Al Jazeera has somewhat been affected by pressure from palestinian powers. Having said that, one has to say that other Islamic issues maintain top billing at the channel’s coverage, such as Afghanistan and Pakistan. Note: the above observations apply to the news coverage. Programming is a completely different matter and has to be discussed perhaps on their own merit. Sometimes bloggs, as important as they are for access to otherwise unavailable news, tend to distort a picture.
Um, the Nahr Al-Bared refugee camp isn’t in south Lebanon. It’s in north Lebanon, right on the outskirts of Tripoli.
And as far as I know, Al-Jazeera is still heavily biased against the Lebanese military. Perhaps they have stopped openly cheering for FAI, but that’s just one tiny step on a very long road.
Thanks for the info, Drima. I think it may be worthwhile to start following Al-Jazeera now, if it indeed does take a less shrill and bigoted stance.
For a little more background on this have a look here:
http://abuaardvark.typepad.com/abuaardvark/2007/06/al-jazeera-chal.html
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