PressEthic

I don't think anyone has blogged on this yet...

The Washington Post reported on Saturday that BBC journalist David Frost has signed on to work with Al-Jazeera's upcoming international network. According to the article, al-Jazeera has been looking for English-speaking reporters, producers, and correspondents for their new network, which will be launching early next year and will have a Washington base. But not many American reporters have been jumping at the opportunity.

In the article, Frost repeats an argument that is common, though perhaps not heard that often in the U.S.: that while some may think the organization is anti-American, there are many others who think it is pro-Western. He admits that there is a "handi-cap" of not being able to understand Arabic (implying that he doesn't trust it 100 percent?), and also says toward the end of the article that he is not “an apologist for al-Jazeera Arabic.”

Frost also points out that he has been assured he will be given full editorial control. I think that is a strange agreement between a journalist and it's network. Frost will be hosting a weekly interview show for the network, and it strikes me as unusual that he would be given total control of the show. It is as if he would not trust the higher-ups to make any last calls on his reporting. If he has to say this, self-assuringly perhaps, doesn’t that imply that Frost has some misgivings about the network?

A lot of the mainstream media in America have portrayed al-Jazeera as being propaganda as well as having terrorist ties. Al-Jazeera’s English website says, “We continue to cover all viewpoints with objectivity integrity and balance.” Honestly, I don’t know which side to trust, as there is a language/cultural barrier on one side and a general distrust for my own government in the other. There was a good article on Salon about this topic which I thought was an objective look at the network. It reports that a common accusation made by the American government and media is that al-Jazeera often refers to suicide bombers as martyr. There is also the fact that one of its top correspondents was arrested (though not proven guilty) for belonging to al-Qaeda. On the other hand, as pointed out in Salon:

By some measures, its supporters say, Al-Jazeera offers coverage that's more balanced than U.S. networks. A recent American University survey of correspondents in Iraq found that they felt news was often scrubbed of the horrors they witnessed on the ground. Reporters complained of pressure to self-censor, and of unrealistic demands to produce "good news." A typical anonymous comment: "I think we sanitized the images too much so that people do not see the reality of war.”

I definitely think it will be interesting to watch this story develop as the International network gains momentum in the coming months.