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The first time most Americans heard the name al-Jazeera was Sunday, Oct. The timing was almost surely accidental -- Western journalists had spent three weeks expecting an attack at any moment. But the impact on the White House was undeniable, and suddenly Washington reverted to the kind of bullying that had not been evident in the buildup to the attack. Secretary of State Colin Powell denounced al-Jazeera for airing "vitriolic, irresponsible kinds of statements" when it broadcast a videotaped statement by suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden praising the Sept. The CIA leaked its concern that bin Laden might be sending secret messages through these taped statements. Condoleeza Rice, the national security adviser, called and visited with top American network and newspaper representatives, urging them to consider the dangers of airing bin Laden's views. Today, al-Jazeera is staffed by many of the same journalists I saw weeping in London that day, including Azar. It is the lone Arabic broadcast outlet to put truth and objectivity above even its survival. For its pains during the five years of its existence, it has been attacked by virtually every government in the Middle East. The chairman of Qatar's al-Jazeera satellite TV network, Sheikh Hamad bin Thamer al-Khalifa, talks to the media last week. Image: 011016_al_khalifa_c The network's bureaus around the region are periodically closed because of al-Jazeera's insistence in airing stories about the corruption of government officials in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria and elsewhere.
First, that to be anything but a lackey in the Arab media is to invite beatings, torture or death. The Society for the Protection of Journalists' annual list of reporters killed in the line of duty is littered with the corpses of moderate, tolerant Arab journalists who have stood up to their bullying dictatorships, on the one hand, or their puritanical mullahs, on the other. Second, the fact that bin Laden's zealous murderers chose al-Jazeera as a way to get their message out has very little to do with the fact that al-Jazeera is the Middle East's only free news network. Did the rebel Irish Republican Army send coded messages to the BBC and the Reuters news agency claiming responsibility for its bombings because it thought British journalists would be sympathetic? Did Saddam Hussein choose CNN as a conduit for his own propaganda during the Persian Gulf War because he took a shine to Peter Arnett? Of course not, though some -- most memorably former Republican Sen. The reason all of these outlets get the story is because they earn it. Al-Jazeera worked hard covering the Afghan story when the very notion of doing so would have been dismissed at an American news meeting. It is important to remember that the list of American journalists who have set foot in Afghanistan over the past five years is short, indeed. It simply didn't fit the mold of what NBC executives thought would garner the largest possible audience. In contrast, al-Jazeera -- and the BBC, until its correspondent was ejected by the Taliban -- stayed in Kabul through the 1990s to cover a civil war that has been raging, in part with American weaponry, for more than a decade. Happily, the attacks the Bush administration launched on al-Jazeera recently backfired so completely that Washington quickly shifted tactics, suddenly granting long-denied interviews with officials like Powell and Rice. Now, there's even talk of buying time on al-Jazeera to broadcast some kind of paid political advertisement about the conflict. Photojournalist Harriet Logan's look at the suffering of Afghan women under Taliban rule. The Bush administration had a good point when it complained that the entire bin Laden video was aired without context. Even in the airiest confines of journalism's ivory towers, the implications of what is being broadcast matters. You can't shout fire in a crowded theater -- at least in an American one -- and expect to get away without consequence for the deadly stampede that ensues. Al-Jazeera's broadcasts since have taken pains to put things into better perspective. Unfortunately, because they're the only game in Kabul, often American networks grab al-Jazeera's video images but don't have the perspective to add because they're not on the ground. Simpson trial, the language of marketing has entered American newsrooms like a badly targeted cruise missile. Talk of plot lines and demographics, sexiness and "water-cooler" appeal have polluted a mission that is protected by its own constitutional amendment. Celebrity journalists interview celebrity dimwits about their sex lives, while American foreign policy is left running on auto-pilot. We were at war, it's just that the media didn't think it was interesting enough to tell you about it.
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