PressEthic

When it comes to news sources, al-Jazeera, the Arabic media group, would not be the first choice for your average American. To start with, its satellite TV channel is in Arabic. More significantly, however, U.S. officials have accused it of being an Al Qaida mouthpiece, and of having an anti-American bias. In 2004, a leaked British government memo revealed that President Bush had considered bombing the channel’s headquarters due to its graphic coverage of the Iraq war, which often undermined the morale boosting efforts of the U.S. media.

But the launch of the al-Jazeera English-language channel, set for November 15, could bring a new perspective to the debate.

Until now, non-Arabic speaking viewers around the world have been dependent on third party sources -- such as government officials or other news networks -- to inform them of the editorial slant of the channel allegedly watched by over 40 million Arabs. When those third parties have a vested interest in denouncing the TV network as biased, the result has been a wholly uninformed distrust of one of the most influential news sources in the world.

An article published yesterday at BBC online describes the significant role it has played in the Arab world:

Al-Jazeera's impact and popularity pressured several state-run television stations to update output to compete. Several Arab governments were forced to lift, if only partially, media controls.

Analysts believe al-Jazeera is responsible for politically educating ordinary Arabs and for raising awareness and political knowledge of both Arab and world affairs. It is also credited with raising the expectations of the masses from their governments.

And the TV network’s news coverage has not only been unpopular with Western governments. The BBC also points out that:

Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi, the late leader of the al-Qaeda in Iraq, reportedly posted an internet message accusing al-Jazeera of being a "mouthpiece for the Americans".

And:

The station is still under boycott in some Gulf states. Saudi Arabia's pressure on companies not to advertise on the channel has prevented it from becoming self-financing.

Al-Jazeera doesn’t pull its punches in its news coverage. This fact and its Arab perspective (which might or might not have been confused with an anti-American bias) could make its English-language channel an invaluable and diversifying contribution to the Western media. As The Chicago Tribune reports:

Al Jazeera says its goal is to reverse the information flow to the world's 1 billion English speakers who now have no choice but to watch Western-oriented broadcasters.

To talk of American viewers specifically, however, is to assume that the TV network will succeed in getting U.S. cable television operators to carry its signal, which could prove to be difficult. A recent poll showed that 53% of Americans were against the launch of the channel, and two-thirds wanted the government to refuse al-Jazeera entry to the U.S. market.

Whether or not it enters the U.S., however, English-speakers across the world will soon be able to watch, and understand for themselves, al-Jazeera International TV and its editorial slant.

The Code of Ethics introduced in 2004 asserts the network's adherence to:

the journalistic values of honesty, courage, fairness, balance, independence, credibility and diversity giving no prioity to commercial or political considerations over professional ones.

Non-arabic speakers are currently largely ignorant as to whether or not this is true. Soon we will be able to judge for ourselves.