Wide Open

“Al Jazeera is the only twenty-four-hour Arab news station. In addition to its fast-moving, video-heavy newscasts, it has built an audience through its talk shows, which probe political, social, and religious issues previously untouched by Arab media.” (Inside Al Jazeera , Rick Zednik) Al Jazeera won the battle in “echoing” public opinion by giving both sides of the issue a chance to let their opinion heard. It fully grasped the essence of arousing emotions among audience through radical and controversial ideas, therefore almost irked all governments but ironically also seemed like the mouthpiece for all sides. For the American government, they love it and hate it at the same time but finally “surrender” to its powerful influence. On the one hand, Pentagon hates the fact that Al Jazeera’s frequent coverage of civilian casualties as well as obvious rhetoric propaganda against US that prevails on Arab streets, while on the other hand, through long time battle with it, US government decided to take a soft way to approach it for fear that a failure to engage with the network would be to leave its journalists to the influence of the Saddam Hussein government, with which it has considerable contacts. In other words, the US government also wanted to utilize it as a tool for American propaganda. In liaison with all sides, both Arabian World and Western countries, Al Jazeera not only sets its unshakable status as the most popular news channel, but also makes a good profit despite the low advertisement revenue from companies due to the fear of its political controversy.