Al Jazeera

Al Jazeera was not the first Arab satellite channel, but it was the first global news channel broadcasting in Arabic from the Middle East rather than Europe. The channel started broadcasting in November of 1996 with a six-hour transmission schedule that was increased to 24 hours by February 1, 1999. Al Jazeera broadcasts news updates every 60 minutes and has four main news bulletins, one of which includes sign language.

In March 2006, Al Jazeera was formally named the Al Jazeera Network. It now consists of the flagship Al Jazeera Arabic, Al Jazeera English, Al Jazeera Documentary, Al Jazeera Sport, Al http://Jazeera.net (the English and Arabic websites), the Al Jazeera Media Training and Development Center, the Al Jazeera Center for Studies, Al Jazeera Mubasher (Live), and Al Jazeera Mobile. Al Jazeera expanded to Malaysia in November 2002 where it is translated into Malay for six hours a day.

A special issue of Al-Hadath magazine devoted to Al Jazeera in March 9, 2000, concluded that 50 years from that date, “historians would rate the establishment of Al Jazeera as one of the most important events in the Arab political arena at the end of the century.” Others credit the station for loosening the stranglehold of Saudi money on Arab media globally. In the 1990s petrodollars allowed Saudi Arabia “to steal the thunder of Egypt, once the Arab media leader in the 1950s and 1960s with its Arab nationalist political ideology” by buying up newspapers and establishing TV stations outside Saudi Arabia. “Egypt's once omnipotent ‘media of mobilization' (i'lam ta'bawi) gave way to Saudi Arabia's ‘media of pacification,' or i'lam tanwimi,” Egyptian journalist and political activist Salah Issa told Andrew Hammond, Reuters reporter in Saudi Arabia, in a 2002 interview. In such media, “entertainment helps put the political mind to sleep and politics is maintained within strict limits. If [Egyptian President] AbdelNasser wanted you fi-shari ‘(on the street), Al Saud wants you fi-sala (in the living room)” (Hammond 2007). Qatar's Al Jazeera news policy “filled the glaring gaps in political and social coverage of the Saudi media with frank discussions of internal situations in Arab countries where opposition and government figures were [Page 69]equally welcome to offer their viewpoint” (Hammond 2007).

Al Jazeera ignores Arab media laws which forbid criticism of rulers, foreign ambassadors, and other Arab countries, and shies away from discussing sex or religion, the national currency, the army, or other controversial topics. The news channel's open media policy led six Arab countries to withdraw their ambassadors from Qatar, while others, like Saudi Arabia and Tunisia, refused to allow Al Jazeera to open offices in their countries. By refusing to buckle under Arab government pressure, however, Al Jazeera gained the respect of Arab viewers who soon made it the most-watched and credible station in the Arab world with 50 million viewers. A 2006 study of Arab expatriates in Egypt found that Al Jazeera is the first source for political news when its newscasts are broadcast simultaneously with other stations for 75 percent of the Arab expatriates, followed by Al Arabiya (19 percent), and the BBC (10 percent). In 2005 InterBrand ranked Al Jazeera as the most recognizable and influential news brand globally.

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