Observation of Al-Jazeera English

1. How effective do you think the Internet will be for Al Jazeera as it attempts to reach a U.S. audience?

I think the Internet will definitely increase the reach-out rate of Al-Jazeera English to US audience, especially to the younger generation who uses the internet regularly. However, as much as it is delightful that the quantity of audience will increase, the problem is still not solved. According to the research result, most of those who do not want the launch of the channel are those of the older generation. And usually, they are not frequent internet users. Hence, the audience base will only expand horizontally but not across generations and different strata in society. This is not exactly the ideal situation.

2. Based on your own observations, do you think that Al Jazeera English should be allowed to broadcast in the U.S.?

Based on my observations, I do agree that Al-Jazeera English should be allowed to broadcast in the US. Al-Jazeera English not only has the potential to act as an open door to the Arab culture and their way of thinking, but it also proves to be an example of freedom of speech. No matter whether US audience agrees with what is shown on Al-Jazeera, their views are worth as much as anybody else's. One of the attached articles showed that there are people who do not agree with the launch of Al-Jazeera English because "Americans don't need to hear the views of Arabs who are at war with the US." This is just like the ostrich effect. By being less informed, Americans are less capable of making well-thought decisions. Moreover, by introducing Al Jazeera English, even for those who are sceptical of the "Arab way of thinking", Americans have the chance to have their opinions challenged and it is logical to hear all sides of the stories. In fact, Al-Jazeera should also be studied in educational institutions as this proves to be the perfect example for critical thinking.
I believe that as media strives to stay objective, it is almost impossible for journalists or news agency to be completely rid of bias. Fox News is considered as biased to many viewers, including myself. So if Fox News can be accepted, why can't Al-Jazeera be launched?

3. What, if anything, do you notice about Al Jazeera's approach to telling the news? How is it different than the U.S.-based TV news outlets that you have experienced?

I think the biggest difference is that their opinions and angles of reporting always start from the Middle Eastern point of view. They always give me a feeling that they are narrating the story as if they were inviting me into their lives and see what really happens in the Middle East or in the Muslim world by showing me what others try so hard to portray. In most of the interviews that were shown today, especially regarding the terrorist attacks in Pakistan and the nuclear plant issue in Iran, there were not a single American interviewed. Most of the interviewers were from the Arab or the Muslim world. However, this is exactly one of the selling points of Al-Jazeera. Although they try to provide international news with objectivity, when the matter concerns the Middle East region, they also aim to target non-Middle Eastern audience as much as Middle Eastern audience. While American media wants to show what America thinks, Al-Jazeera wants to show what the Middle East perceives on the same issues.

4. While on the Al Jazeera site, be sure to check out the network's published Code of Ethics. Based on your own observations, do you think they are adhering to them?

I think mostly they are adhering to the Code of Ethics. But like I mentioned what I had observed: most of the interviews made were more from the Arab world's point of view. So in that case, it may contain some sort of partiality. However, most parts of the Code are really abstract. Different media agencies have different ways of defining "courage, fairness, balance, priority, truth, respect, clarity". Therefore I would say on most levels, Al-Jazeera has been acting according to their understanding of the above concepts. From today's news, I did not see any special or controversial opinions that are very different from the mainstream international media.

International News Assignment

I have surfed through a few channels, including BBC, France 24 (English), Press TV,Sky News Headlines and Russia Today. Generally, I think the content of the international news is very much the same, including the German election, the flood in the Philippines and the opening of the nuclear plants in Iran for inspections.

Of course, each channel puts more emphasis on its regional news, for instance BBC puts more focus on their Prime Minister, Golden Brown's latest activities while Russia Today includes a lot of news from former Soviet Union member countires, such as Ukraine and Kazakhstan. Interestingly, Sky News also features a smaller, local story of how an immigrant worker was being bullied by her boss.

There are two things that I find very interesting. One of them is that the news anchor of Press TV was wearing a hijab. That was quite an unexpected scene because I think we have a standard image of internationality in our mind and that all reporters or news anchors of international media networks are somehow very westernised. However, Press TV has made an exception.

Another thing that I noticed is from Russia Today. There was a report about the resources put on training national gymnasts by the Russia government. In the 15-minute report, there were a lot of compliments given to the government either through interpretation of data or the interview with the chief coach. She reinforced the idea that the government had put a lot of resources into training the future champions of the world etc. This got me a little bit suspicious and intrigued me to do some research on the TV channel. It was not surprising to discover that Russia Today is sponsored by the state-owned Russian news agency RIA-Novosti. Although admittedly, I cannot make a conclusion based on my 30-minute observation, it is legitimate to say that audience cannot help but be a bit doubtful about the perspective reported.