Al Jazeera Television

Founded in 1996, the Qatari satellite broadcasting station Al Jazeera has become the most popular news network in the Arab world and has a worldwide reputation. The channel is generally recognized for making a breakthrough in the history of Arab television by having introduced a liberal TV model that is largely free of government control into the Arab media landscape. The network was founded by Qatar's ruler, Emir Al-Thani, who hired a large number of journalists from BBC's closed-down Arabic service. The “Arab CNN,” as Al Jazeera is often called, aims at combining U.S. news and politainment formats with BBC's journalism ethics of “neutrality” and “objectivity” while carrying out an Arab news agenda. After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, in New York and Washington, D.C., and in the course of its coverage of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, a heated debate over the network broke out and has received enormous attention.

Within the first years of existence Al Jazeera won around 40 international prizes from organizations such as Index on Censorship. What made the network so attractive to Arab viewers, as well as to international observers, was the channel's often rigorous break with social and political taboos. Female circumcision, the Syrian regime, or the West-Sahara conflict: These are just a few of the many issues Al Jazeera covered over the years that no other Arab TV station had ever tackled before. On talk shows such as The Opposite Direction with moderator Faisal al-Kasim, [Page 24]a show based on the Crossfire model, opponents from different ideological camps, representatives of governments, and opposition forces directly confront each other. For many, Al Jazeera has reanimated the idea of free public speech in the Arab world.

As a consequence, Al Jazeera has been strongly criticized by almost all Arab regimes, most of them authoritarian in nature, who fear the loss of their TV monopoly. Many offices of the network in Arab countries have been closed time and again. The Arab States Broadcasting Union (ASBU) denied Al Jazeera a regular membership, and many advertisers close to Arab regimes from Saudi Arabia and other countries boycotted the network.

But governments also understood that such pressure made the network even more popular as a mouthpiece of Arab populations. Although there are no solid figures at hand and research concentrating on media usage patterns is still in its infancy, Al Jazeera is widely considered the leading news network in the Arab world. Thirty-five to 45 million regular viewers who receive the channel through Arabsat and other satellites.

In terms of finance and organization Al Jazeera is a hybrid that fits into none of the standard Western categories of state, public, or private broadcasting. Without the protection and financial engagement of Emir alThani and the state of Qatar Al Jazeera would not exist. However, the channel views itself as being independent and indebted to Arab public opinion. It is also “private” in the sense that no institutional checks-and-balances or a clear programmatic seem to exist—as in the case of German public TV, for instance (“Programmauftrag”). Moreover, state subsidies are not guaranteed indefinitely, and the network has frequently proclaimed the need to become commercially independent. On the whole, Al Jazeera's financial and organizational situation remains fragile and vulnerable.

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