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The Public Diplomacy Blog is intended to stimulate dialog among scholars, researchers, practitioners and professionals from around the world in the public diplomacy sphere. The opinions represented here are the authors' own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the USC Center on Public Diplomacy at the Annenberg School.

AL-JAZEERA ENGLISH: BEGINNING TO FIND AN IDENTITY
DEC 2, 2006 - 2:00AM PST
Posted by Lawrence Pintak
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(Cairo) -- Bad news is often good news for journalists. Last week's assassination of Lebanese opposition leader Pierre Gemayel may have been exactly that for al-Jazeera English, the Westernized cousin of the channel the Bush administration loves to hate. It isn't so much that AJE has triumphed in its coverage of the latest Lebanese crisis -- far from it -- but it has shown signs of finding its footing after an uncertain first week. Since AJE went live Nov. 15, it has looked more like Bob Geldorf TV than a channel dedicated to "fearless journalism" that is "setting the news agenda," as promised in the self-congratulatory promos. While it has been refreshing to see reports from places like Darfur, Myanmar and Zimbabwe, the channel was crammed with so many obscure features from forgotten corners of the world that it was beginning to resemble a UN video service. News flash: There's a reason some of these stories are "ignored" by other channels. In an interview in early November ("Al-Jazeera's Chief: 'We Are Not Politically-Correct'"), Wadah Khanfar, director general of the al-Jazeera Channels, told me that the new English service would have a "global" rather than "Arab" perspective, with an emphasis on the "global South." That was evident in Week One, as staffers pursued a self-conscious -- sometimes excruciating -- emphasis on being the Un-CNN. If Geldorf had used the proceeds from Live Aid to start a TV channel, it seemed, this would be it. Launch day was particularly disappointing ("Al-Jazeera English: Day One Report Card"). The weakness was not in bias, as critics warned in advance, but in the breadth and depth of news coverage. Soft news -- if you could even use the term for a series of timeless features -- ruled the day. With all the delays, the channel had plenty of "exclusive" (but largely news-less) interviews and evergreens in the can and it seemed determined to use them, come Hell or high water (literally, since that day's Japanese tsunami was largely ignored). Pieces on an obscure tribe in Brazil and Chinese kids who drive fast were endlessly looped. There were almost hourly live shots from Darfur (because they were there) and the same spot on gas shortages in Zimbabwe ran over and over. The magazine-style topical shows that occupy the second half of each hour showed great potential to add context and perspective to global developments, digging into important stories largely ignored in the West, but the breaking coverage itself was lacking. Things improved as the week went on, but the channel remained heavy on compassion and light on news. Then came the Gemayel assassination. Its boss may claim AJE doesn't present an "Arab" perspective, but the Qatar-based channel damn well should be outperforming Western rivals on its own turf. The first hours after the assassination showed little evidence of that. In fact, AJE -- which North American audiences can see only on the Web -- seemed to be repeating the mistakes of both Western and Arab broadcasters.…... FULL TEXT
 
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