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This morning in the Washington Post, columnist David Ignatius takes an in depth look at the current state of the al-Jazeera news network.
“What do people in the Middle East think five years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks?” writes Ignatius. “To get a quick snapshot, I paid a visit here to Ahmed Sheikh, the editor in chief of al-Jazeera television. It was reassuring, in a perverse way, that he views the situation in his region the same way that most Americans would — as a dangerous mess.”
“Al-Jazeera has been attacked by American officials as a propaganda tool for Osama bin Laden and other Muslim radicals,” writes Ignatius. “And as a journalist, I have often found its coverage unbalanced. It tries too hard to present the Arab news, rather than just the news. That said, I was struck, in talking to Sheikh, by how complicated it has become for al-Jazeera to cover this part of the world.”
Afterwards, bloggers rushed to the scene to provide their own meta-assessment.
“I second this assessment by Washington Post columnist David Ignatius in his column ‘Al-Jazeera’s Tricky Balancing Act,'” writes Reflective Pundit. “There is no doubt that the coverage of this global network is biased in favor of the predominant views in the Arab and Muslim world–especially with respect to its pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli position. But al-Jazeera has also ruffled the feathers of governments, religious leaders, and the masses in the region.”
“The reality is, of course, that the press at all times has taken on the characteristics of the political, social, economic, cultural, and religious environment it operates in–including all the biases of the predominant societal forces,” adds Reflective Pundit. “In today’s world, the global media players reflect to one degree or the other basic views and ideologies of the countries and regions they are headquartered in and of their owners.”
Elsewhere, Extreme Mortman and Liberty and Justice disagreed with Ignatius.
“Having spent a fair share of my time watching al-Jazeera when I worked for the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the U.S. agency that runs America’s international broadcasting operations, I can’t share Ignatius’ confusion,” writes Extreme Mortman.
“What did I witness?” adds Extreme Mortman. “As I’ve written before: Constant victim-based images that peddled on what America was doing to Iraqis and what Israel was doing to Palestinians. I saw program after program, promo after promo, feeding into the notion that Arabs are being routinely victimized by the rest of the world, catering to an overwhelmingly anti-American audience.”
“David Ignatius wrote an OP-ED about Arab network Al Jazeera,” writes Liberty and Justice. “Where most of us consider Al Jazeera to be nothing but a propaganda-tool for extremists, David believes that the network – although he admits that it as a ‘tendency’ to ‘spin’ the news – still has great potential to practice real journalism.”
“The problem with their reporting is that they only have difficulty saying who the good guys are relating to Shia terrorists, or Sunni terrorists,” adds Liberty and Justice. “They don’t have any difficulty determining that Israel and the US are ‘evil’.”
In the meantime, the Angry Arab News Service and Blue Crab Boulevard were fuming about Ignatius’ piece for other reasons.
“What arrogance. What absurdity,” writes The Angry Arab News Service. “David Ignatius who wrote this sentence does NOT know Arabic: ‘And as a journalist, I have often found its coverage unbalanced. It tries too hard to present the Arab news, rather than just the news.'”
“The newest meme, as far as I can tell, is this: the Sunni Muslims are too different from the Shi’ite Muslims to actually be able to work together,” writes Blue Crab Boulevard. “David Ignatius at the Washington Post is now promoting this idea. You see, he tells us, al Jazeera has to walk a tightrope to provide their news coverage. Because Sunni and Shi’ite are so very different.”
“Funny thing about this kind of argument,” adds Blue Crab Boulevard. “It is complete and utter nonsense. History is replete with examples of sworn enemies working together against a mutual foe. Groups with wildly different goals, objectives and mindsets work together all the time and always have. You can see it in the “peace” movement in the West on a regular basis. It is a huge mistake to take this line.”
Finally, Ignatius’ column filled Carry on America with a sense of optimism.
“David Ignatius writes in ‘Al-Jazeera’s Tricky Balancing Act’ that al-Jazeera is not as one-sided as the Western world had previously supposed,” writes Carry on America. “There are plenty of Arabs that are unsatisfied with the network…So al-Jazeera does have its Arab critics. That’s refreshing, but it is also nice to know that there are other alternatives in the Arab speaking world such as the Western led Al Arabiya based in Dubai. Democracy thrives with more available news sources.”
Felix Gillette writes about the media for The New York Observer.