Propaganda & Mass Persuasion: I Want My Al Jazeera, Inside Al Jazeera

Saturday, April 22, 2006

I Want My Al Jazeera, Inside Al Jazeera

This reading talks about how both sides of a conflict get a chance to share their point of view. Yousef Al Shouly, a Palestinian senior producer for Al Jazeera says that "When there is a controversy in a country, he says, his station allows both the government and the opposition to give their point of view. Al Jazeera give both sides a chance." Some goverments though do not like Al Jazeera even though they get their point of view across. Like when Al Jazeera upset Palestinian authorites with a preview for a March 2001 documentary. In the documentary the network explored the role of Palestinian guerillas "as players in Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war. " All coverage was supposse to be removed because that's what Arafat had requested but Al Jazeera didn't listen and aired all the footage any way. Saudi Arabia doesn't allow Al Jazeera in it's territory. Although they do allow the network to cover certain events. Jordan too had problems with the network. Although Algeria has not, "There's hardly an Arab government that the station has not offended. Al Jazeera staff say the Qatari foreign ministry has recieved more than 400 complaints. When the network aired a program probing Algeria's civil war, the government in Algiers cut the signal. Nadia Tabib, an Al Jazeera employee, says Algerian soon flooded phone lines with cries of "I want my Al Jazeera.!" The Algerians must really like and approve the network and it's coverage. Even know its the regions number one watched news network it's revenue is not as high as other in the region. Also Al Jazeera's advertising is down. Only forty percent of advertising revenue come from commercials. Al Jazeera is expanding to the U.K. "as well as Indonesia and Malaysia." Al Jazzera had a fallen out with its connection to CNN over an interview with Osama Bin Laden. The interview was not supposed to be aired because Al Jazeera felt it wasn't newsworthy. As a result of this Al Jazeera "severed" its relationship with CNN.

1 Comments:

Blogger A. Mattson said...

What does all of this tell you about Al Jazeera? Do the flaws in the coverage provided by FOX or Al Jazeera disqualify either as a serious source of information? Or do these extremes represent important perspectives on foreign affairs? Certainly Al Jazeera has angered a lot of authoritarian regimes in the Middle East.

4/24/2006 10:31 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home