Aljazeera

This article is about the TV network and channel —for other uses, see Jazira. For the English-language channel, see Al Jazeera English. For the unrelated Saudi-Arabian magazine, see Aljazeera Publishing and aljazeera.com.

Al Jazeera

Type	Satellite television network
Country	Qatar
Availability	Worldwide
Owner	Sheikh Hamad bin Thamer al-Thani
Key people	Sheikh Hamad bin Thamer al-Thani, Chairman Wadah Khanfar, Director-General Ahmed Sheikh, Editor-in-chief
Launch date	1996
Official Website	http://english.aljazeera.net/

Al Jazeera (Arabic: الجزيرة‎ al-ğazīra IPA: [aldʒaziːra], literally, "The Island," abbreviating "The [Arabian] Peninsula" ^[1]) is an international news network headquartered in Doha, Qatar. Initially launched as an Arabic news and current affairs satellite TV channel with the same name, Al Jazeera has since expanded into a network with several outlets, including the Internet and specialty TV channels in multiple languages. Al Jazeera is accessible in several world regions.

The original Al Jazeera channel's willingness to broadcast dissenting views, including on call-in shows, created controversies in the Arab states of the Persian Gulf. The station gained worldwide attention following the September 11, 2001 attacks, when it was the only channel to cover the war in Afghanistan live from its office there.

Contents 1 Organization 1.1 Staff 2 Reach 2.1 Expansion outside the Middle East 2.2 Availability 2.3 On the Web 2.3.1 Web host changes 2.3.2 Creative Commons 2.4 Plans 3 Attacks on and censorship of Al Jazeera 3.1 Algeria 3.2 Palestinian Territories 3.3 United States 3.3.1 Death of Tareq Ayyoub 3.3.2 Al Jazeera bombing memo 3.4 Web site attacks 4 Controversy 4.1 Bahrain 4.2 Iraq 4.3 Israel 4.4 Qatar 4.5 Egypt 4.6 Somalia 4.7 Spain 4.8 United Kingdom 4.9 United States 4.9.1 Detention of Sami Al Hajj 4.10 Dalal al-Maghrabi 4.11 Satellite disruption 5 Documentaries 6 Awards 7 Competitors 8 Network 9 References 10 Further reading 11 External links

Organization

The original Al Jazeera channel was started in 1996 by an emiri decree with a loan of 500 million Qatari riyals (US$137 million) from the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa.^[2][3] By its funding through loans or grants rather than direct government subsidies, the channel claims to maintain independent editorial policy.^[4][5] The channel began broadcasting in late 1996, with many staff joining from the BBC World Service's Saudi-co-owned Arabic language TV station, which had shut down in April 1996 after two years of operation because of censorship demands by the Saudi Arabian government.^[6]

Following the initial US$137 million grant from the Emir of Qatar, Al Jazeera had aimed to become self-sufficient through advertising by 2001, but when this failed to occur, the Emir agreed to several consecutive loans^[3] on a year-by-year basis (US$30 million in 2004,^[7] according to Arnaud de Borchgrave). Other major sources of income include advertising, cable subscription fees, broadcasting deals with other companies, and sale of footage.^[8] In 2000, advertising accounted for 40% of the station's revenue.^[9]

The Al Jazeera logo is a decorative representation of the network's name written using Arabic calligraphy. It was selected by the station's founder, Emir of Qatar Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa, as the winning entry in a design competition.^[10]

Staff

The Chairman of Al Jazeera is Sheikh Hamad bin Thamer al-Thani, a distant cousin of Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani.

Al Jazeera recently restructured its operations to form a Network that contains all their different channels. Wadah Khanfar, the managing director of the Arabic Channel was appointed as the Director General of the Al Jazeera Network. He also acts as the Managing Director of the Arabic channel. He is supported by Ahmed Sheikh, Editor-in-Chief, and Amen Jaballah.

The Editor-in-Chief of the Arabic website is Ahmed Sheikh. It has more than 100 editorial staff.

The Editor-in-Chief of the English-language site is Mohamed Nanabhay. He replaced Beat Witschi, who was caretaking the website after Russell Merryman, the previous Editor-in-Chief, moved to a new development role. Merryman had run the website since 2005 and re-launched the site alongside the launch of the new channel in November 2006. He replaced Omar Bec who was caretaking the site after the departure of Managing Editor Alison Balharry. Previous incumbents include Joanne Tucker and Ahmed Sheikh.

Prominent on-air personalities include Faisal al-Qassem, host of the talk show The Opposite Direction, Ahmed Mansour, host of the show Unlimited (bi-la hudud) and Sami Haddad.

Yosri Fouda, producer and presenter of an investigative journalism program Top Secret announced his resignation from Al Jazeera in May 2009.

Reach

It is widely believed internationally that inhabitants of the Arab world are given limited information by their governments and media, and that what is conveyed is biased towards the governments' views.^[11] Many people see Al Jazeera as a more trustworthy source of information than government and foreign channels. Some scholars and commentators use the notion of contextual objectivity,^[12] which highlights the tension between objectivity and audience appeal, to describe the station's controversial yet popular news approach.^[13] As a result, it is probably the most watched news channel in the Middle East. Increasingly, Al Jazeera's exclusive interviews and other footage are being rebroadcast in American, British, and other western media outlets such as CNN and the BBC. In January 2003, the BBC announced that it had signed an agreement with Al Jazeera for sharing facilities and information, including news footage.^[14] Al Jazeera is now considered by some to be a fairly mainstream media network, though more controversial than most. In the United States as of 2006, video footage from the network carried by other stations was largely limited to video segments of hostages.

Al Jazeera's availability (via satellite) throughout the Middle East changed the television landscape of the region. Prior to the arrival of Al Jazeera, many Middle Eastern citizens were unable to watch TV channels other than state-censored national TV stations. Al Jazeera introduced a level of freedom of speech on TV that was previously unheard of in many of these countries. Al Jazeera presented controversial views regarding the governments of many Persian Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar; it also presented controversial views about Syria's relationship with Lebanon, and the Egyptian judiciary. Critics accused Al Jazeera of sensationalism in order to increase its audience share. Al Jazeera's broadcasts have sometimes resulted in drastic action: For example, on 27 January 1999, Al Jazeera had critics of the Algerian government on during their live program El-Itidjah el-Mouakass (="The Opposite Direction"). The Algerian government cut the electricity supply to at least large parts of the capital Algiers (and allegedly to large parts of the country), to prevent the program from being seen.^[11][12][15] At that time, Al Jazeera was not yet generally known in the Western world, but where it was known, the opinion about it was often favourable^[16] and Al Jazeera claimed to be the only politically independent television station in the Middle East.However, it wasn't until late 2001 that Al Jazeera achieved worldwide recognition, when it broadcast video statements by al-Qaeda leaders.^[17]

Expansion outside the Middle East

In 2003, Al Jazeera hired its first English-language journalists, among whom Afshin Rattansi, from the BBC's Today Programme

In March 2003, it launched an English-language website (see below).

On 4 July 2005 Al Jazeera officially announced plans to launch a new English-language satellite service to be called Al Jazeera International.^[18] The new channel started at 12h GMT on 15 November 2006 under the name Al Jazeera English and has broadcast centers in Doha (next to the original Al Jazeera headquarters and broadcast center), London, Kuala Lumpur and Washington D.C.. The channel is a 24-hour, 7-days-a-week news channel, with 12 hours broadcast from Doha, and four hours each from London, Kuala Lumpur, and Washington D.C.. This offer came from a non-profit US network which also broadcasts Russian-language programming for free to US viewers.

With Al Jazeera's growing global outreach and influence, some scholars including Adel Iskandar have described the station as a transformation of the very definition of "alternative media."^[19]

As of 2007, the Arabic Al Jazeera channel rivals the BBC in worldwide audiences with an estimated 40 to 50 million viewers.^[20] Al Jazeera English has an estimated reach of around 100 million households.^[21]

On November 26, 2009, Al Jazeera English received approval from the CRTC, which enables Al Jazeera English to broadcast via Satellite in Canada ^[22]

Availability

The original Al Jazeera channel is available worldwide through various satellite and cable systems.^[23] In the U.S., it is available through subscription satellite and free to air DVB-S on the Galaxy 25 and Galaxy 23 satellites. Al Jazeera can also be freely viewed with a DVB-S receiver in Europe, Northern Africa and the Middle East as it is broadcast on the Astra and Hot Bird satellites. The Optus C1 satellite in Australia carries the channel for free, while in the UK it is available on Freeview, Sky and Freesat platforms.

For availability info of the Al Jazeera network's other TV channels, see their respective articles. Segments of Al Jazeera English are uploaded to YouTube.^[24]

It is also possible to watch Al Jazeera English over the internet from their official website. The low-resolution version is available free of charge,^[25] high-resolution available under subscription fees through partner sites.

Al Jazeera's English division has also partnered with Livestation for Internet-based broadcasting.^[26] This enables viewers to watch Al Jazeera English and Al Jazeera live worldwide.

On the Web

Al Jazeera's web-based service is accessible subscription-free throughout the world. The station launched an English-language edition of its online content in March 2003. This English language website was relaunched on 15 November 2006, along with the launch of Al Jazeera English. The English and Arabic sections are editorially distinct, with their own selection of news and comment. Al Jazeera and Al Jazeera English are available streamed live online. On April 13, 2009, Al Jazeera launched condensed versions of its English and Arabic sites for mobile device users.

The Arabic version of the site was brought offline for about 10 hours by an FBI raid on its ISP, InfoCom Corporation, on 5 September 2001. InfoCom was later convicted of exporting to Libya and Syria, of knowingly being invested in by a Hamas member (both of which are illegal in the United States), and of underpaying customs duties.^[27]

Web host changes

The English-language site was forced to change internet hosting providers several times, due, in Al Jazeera's opinion, to political pressure. Initially, hosting for the English-language site was provided by the U.S.-based company DataPipe, which gave Al Jazeera notice, soon followed by Akamai Technologies.^[28] Al Jazeera later shifted to the French branch of NavLink, and then to (the current host) AT&T WorldNet Services.

Creative Commons

On January 13, 2009, Al Jazeera released some of its broadcast quality footage from Gaza under a Creative Commons license. Contrary to business "All Rights Reserved" standards, the license invites third parties, including rival broadcasters, to reuse and remix the footage, so long as Al Jazeera is credited. The videos are hosted on blip.tv, which allows easy downloading and integration with Miro, and can be viewed on http://cc.aljazeera.net/ .^{[29][30][31][32][33][34]}

Plans

Future announced products include Al Jazeera in a number of other languages — these would include Al Jazeera Urdu, an Urdu language channel to cater mainly to Pakistanis.^[35]

Al Jazeera has also been reported to be planning to launch an international newspaper.^[36]

Al Jazeera Arabic began using a chroma key studio on 13 September 2009. Similar to Sky News, Al Jazeera broadcasted from that studio while the channels main newsroom was given a new look. The channel relaunched, with new graphics and music along with a new studio, on November 1, 2009, the 13th birthday of the channel.

Attacks on and censorship of Al Jazeera

Algeria

On 27 January 1999, several Algerian cities lost power simultaneously, reportedly to keep residents from watching a program in which Algerian dissidents implicated the Algerian military in a series of massacres.^[11][12][15]

On 4 July 2004, the Algerian government froze the activities of Al Jazeera's Algerian correspondent. The official reason given was that a reorganization of the work of foreign correspondents was in progress. The international pressure group Reporters Without Borders says, however, that the measure was really taken in reprisal for a broadcast the previous week of another Al-Itijah al-Mouakiss debate on the political situation in Algeria.^[37]

Palestinian Territories

On 15 July 2009, the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank closed down Al Jazeera's offices in the territory, apparently in response to claims made on the channel by Farouk Kaddoumi that PA President Mahmoud Abbas had been involved in the death of Yasser Arafat. In a statement announcing the decision, the information ministry said the station's coverage was "unbalanced" and accused it of incitement against the PLO and the PA.^[38]

On 19 July 2009, Abbas rescinded this ban and allowed Al Jazeera to resume operations.^[39]

United States

On November 13, 2001, during the US invasion of Afghanistan, 2001, a U.S. missile strike destroyed Al Jazeera's office in Kabul. There were no casualties.^[40]

In the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the U.S. Pentagon hired the Rendon Group to target and possibly punish Al Jazeera reporters who did not stay on message.^[41] When Al Jazeera went on to do reporting featuring very graphic footage from inside Iraq, US officials decried Al Jazeera as anti-American and as inciting violence.^[42]

Examples of censorship in the U.S. came shortly after the start of the invasion.^[43] On Monday, 24 March 2003, two Al Jazeera reporters covering the New York Stock Exchange had their credentials revoked. The New York Stock Exchange banned Al Jazeera (as well as several other news organizations whose identities were not revealed) from its trading floor indefinitely. NYSE spokesman Ray Pellechia claimed "security reasons" and that the exchange had decided to give access only to networks that focus "on responsible business coverage". He denied the revocation has anything to do with the network's Iraq war coverage.^[44] However, Robert Zito, the exchange's executive vice president for communications, indicated that Al Jazeera's graphic footage broadcast on Sunday, 22 March 2003, led him to oust Al Jazeera.^[43] The move was quickly mirrored by Nasdaq stock market officials.^[45]

In addition, Akamai Technologies, a U.S. company, cancelled a contract to provide web services for Al-Jazeera’s English language website.^[46][47]

Death of Tareq Ayyoub

On 8 April 2003, Al Jazeera's office in Baghdad was hit by a U.S. missile, killing reporter Tareq Ayyoub and wounding another.^[48] Al Jazeera reports that it had mailed coordinates for their office to the U.S. State Department six weeks earlier and that these should have clearly identified their location.^[49] Dima Tareq Tahboub, the widow of Tareq Ayyoub, continues as of 2003^[update] to denounce her husband's death and has among other things written for The Guardian and participated in a documentary broadcast on Al Jazeera English.^[50]

On 30 January 2005, the New York Times reported that the Qatari government, under pressure from the Bush administration, was speeding up plans to sell the station.^[51] However, as of 2008, the station/network has not been sold and it is unclear whether there are still any plans to do so.

Al Jazeera bombing memo

Also see O'Connor - Keogh official secrets trial.

On 22 November 2005, the UK tabloid The Daily Mirror published a story claiming that it had obtained a leaked memo from 10 Downing Street saying that former U.S. President George W. Bush had considered bombing Al Jazeera's Doha headquarters in April 2004, when U.S. Marines were conducting a contentious assault on Fallujah.^[52]

In light of this allegation, Al Jazeera has questioned whether it has been targeted deliberately in the past — Al Jazeera's Kabul office was bombed in 2001 and another missile hit its office in Baghdad during the invasion of Iraq, killing correspondent Tareq Ayyoub. Both of these attacks occurred subsequent to Al Jazeera's disclosure of the locations of their offices to the United States.^[53]

Web site attacks

Immediately after its launch in 2003, the English site was attacked by one or several hackers, who launched denial-of-service attacks, and another hacker who redirected visitors to a site featuring an American flag.^[54][28] Both events were widely reported as Al Jazeera's website having been attacked by "hackers".^[55] In November 2003, John William Racine II, also known as 'John Buffo', was sentenced to 1,000 hours of community service and a $1,500 U.S. fine for the online disruption. Racine posed as an Al Jazeera employee to get a password to the network's site, then redirected visitors to a page he created that showed an American flag shaped like a U.S. map and a patriotic motto, court documents said.^[56] In June 2003, Racine pleaded guilty to wire fraud and unlawful interception of an electronic communication.^[57] As of 2008, the perpetrators of the denial-of-service attacks remain unknown.

Controversy

While Al Jazeera has a large audience in the Middle East and worldwide, the organization and the original Arabic channel in particular have been involved in numerous controversies,^[58] including in some parts of the Western world. Americans in general have an unfavourable view of Al Jazeera.^[59]

A widely reported criticism is the false allegation that Al Jazeera had shown videos of masked terrorists beheading western hostages in Iraq.^[60] When this was reported in other media, Al Jazeera pressed for retractions to be made.^[61] This allegation was again repeated on Fox News in the USA on the launch day of Al Jazeera's English service, 15 November 2006.^[62] Later The Guardian apologized for incorrect information that Al Jazeera 'had shown videos of masked terrorists beheading western hostages'.^[63]

Al Jazeera has been entangled in the following controversies:

Bahrain

The Bahraini Information Minister, Nabeel Yacoob Al Hamer, banned Al Jazeera correspondents from reporting from inside the country on 10 May 2002, saying that the station was biased towards Israel and against Bahrain.^[64] After improvements in relations between Bahrain and Qatar in 2004, Al Jazeera correspondents returned to Bahrain.

Iraq

During the ongoing Iraq war, Al Jazeera faced reporting and movement restrictions, as did other news-gathering organizations. In addition, one of its reporters, Tayseer Allouni, was expelled from the country, while another one, Diyar Al-Omari, was stripped of his journalistic permits by the US. Reacting to this, Al Jazeera announced on 2 April 2003, that it would "temporarily freeze all coverage" of Iraq in protest of what Al Jazeera described as unreasonable interference from Iraqi officials.^[65] In May 2003, the CIA, through the Iraqi National Congress, released documents purportedly showing that Al Jazeera had been infiltrated by Iraqi spies, and was regarded by Iraqi officials as part of their propaganda effort. As reported by the Sunday Times, the alleged spies were described by an Al Jazeera executive as having minor roles with no input on editorial decisions.

On 23 September 2003, Iraq suspended Al Jazeera (and Al-Arabiya) from reporting on official government activities for two weeks for what the Council stated as supporting recent attacks on council members and Coalition occupational forces. The move came after allegations by Iraqis who stated that the channel had incited anti-occupation violence (by airing statements from Iraqi insurgency leaders), increasing ethnic and sectarian tensions, and being supportive of the insurgency.

During 2004, Al Jazeera broadcast several video tapes of various victims of kidnappings in Iraq, which had been sent to the network. The videos had been filmed by the kidnappers holding the hostages. The hostages were shown, often blindfolded, pleading for their release. They often appeared to be forced to read out prepared statements of their kidnappers. Al Jazeera has assisted authorities from the home countries of the victims in an attempt to secure the release of kidnapping victims. This included broadcasting pleas from family members and government officials. Contrary to some allegations, including the oft-reported comments of Donald Rumsfeld on 4 June 2005, Al Jazeera has never shown beheadings. (Beheadings have appeared on numerous non-Al Jazeera websites and have sometimes been misattributed to Al Jazeera.)^[60]

On 7 August 2004, the Iraqi Allawi government shut down the Iraq office of Al Jazeera, claiming that it was responsible for presenting a negative image of Iraq, and charging the network with fueling anti-Coalition hostilities. Al Jazeera spokesman Jihad Ballout said: "It's regrettable and we believe it's not justifiable. This latest decision runs contrary to all the promises made by Iraqi authorities concerning freedom of expression and freedom of the press,"^[66] and Al Jazeera vowed to continue its reporting from inside Iraq.^[67] News photographs showed United States and Iraqi military personnel working together to close the office. Initially closed by a one-month ban, the shutdown was extended indefinitely in September 2004, and the offices were sealed,^[68] drawing condemnation from international journalists.^[69]

In April 2003, the Qatar channel broadcasted a long commemorative program showing ex-General of the Iraqi Republican Guards, Sayf ad-Din Rawi, who claimed that a neutron bomb had been dropped on the international airport of Bagdad during the invasion of Iraq.^[70] This accusation was easy to deny, and was based on the popular belief that neutron bombs only produce radiation while leaving infrastructure intact. Also, a nuclear weapon like a neutron bomb produces nuclear fallout which is easily, and rapidly perceptible from other countries.

Israel

On 19 July 2008, Al Jazeera TV broadcast a program from Lebanon that covered the "welcome-home" festivities for Samir Kuntar, a Lebanese militant who had been imprisoned in Israel for murdering several people in a Palestine Liberation Front raid from Lebanon into Israel. In the program, the head of Al Jazeera's Beirut office, Ghassan bin Jiddo, praised Kuntar as a "pan-Arab hero" and organized a birthday party for him. In response, Israel's Government Press Office (GPO) threatened to boycott the satellite channel unless it apologized. A few days later an official letter was issued by Al Jazeera's director general, Wadah Khanfar, in which he admitted that the program violated the station's Code of Ethics and that he had ordered the channel's programming director to take steps to ensure that such an incident does not recur.

Qatar

Al Jazeera has been criticized for failing to report on many hard hitting news stories that originate from Qatar, where Al Jazeera is based. The two most frequently cited stories were the revoking of citizenship from the Al Ghafran clan of the Al Murrah tribe in response to a failed coup that members of the Al Ghafran clan were implicated in, and Qatar's growing relations with and diplomatic visits to Israel.^[71]

Egypt

Al Jazeera has been criticized by numerous Egyptian newspapers and other forms of media for its continuous attacks against Egypt and its government to "destroy Egypt’s image in the region" as they claim. ^{[72] [73] [74]}

Somalia

In January 2009 Al Jazeera aired a documentary on toxic waste dumped in Somalia. A Somali journalist who studied the contents of the two part Al Jazeera documentary, The Toxic Truth,^[75] has concluded that Al Jazeera failed to rigorously research the story because one of the letters used to substantiate arms smuggling was issued on 15 April 1992, from the Ministry of Defence of People's Democratic Republic of Yemen, almost two years after South Yemen and North Yemen united to form the Republic of Yemen in May 1990.^[76] Another criticism of the documentary was that Al Jazeera did not allow Ali Mahdi Muhammad, former interim president of Somalia, to exercise his right of reply for being accused of authorising Italy based companies to build dumping grounds in Somalia.

Spain

Reporter Tayseer Allouni was arrested in Spain on 5 September 2003, on a charge of having provided support for members of al-Qaeda.^[77] Judge Baltasar Garzón, who had issued the arrest warrant, ordered Allouni held without bail. Al Jazeera wrote to then Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar and protested: "On several occasions Western journalists met secretly with secret organizations and they were not subjected to any legal action because they were doing their job, so why is Allouni being excluded?"^[78] Allouni was released on bail several weeks later over health concerns, but prohibited from leaving the country.

On 19 September, a Spanish court issued an arrest warrant for Allouni before the expected verdict. Allouni had asked the court for permission to visit his family in Syria to attend the funeral of his mother but authorities denied his request and instead ordered him back to jail.^[79]

Although he pleaded not guilty of all the charges against him, Allouni was sentenced on 26 September 2005 to seven years in prison for being a financial courier for al-Qaeda. Allouni insisted he merely interviewed bin Laden after the September 11 attack on the United States.^[80] Al Jazeera has continuously supported Allouni and maintain that he is innocent.^[81]

Many international and private organizations (Reporters Without Borders among them) condemned the arrest and called on the Spanish court to free Taysir Allouni.^[82] Websites such as Alony Solidarity were created to support Allouni.

United Kingdom

UK officials, like their US counterparts, strongly protested Al Jazeera's coverage of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Al Jazeera stated that the coalition leaders were taking exception because its reporting made it more difficult for both countries to manage the way the war was being reported.^[42]

United States

While prior to 11 September 2001, the United States government had lauded Al Jazeera for its role as an independent media outlet in the Middle East, US officials have since claimed an anti-American bias to Al Jazeera's news coverage.^[42][83]

The station first gained widespread attention in the West following the September 11, 2001 attacks, when it broadcast videos in which Osama bin Laden and Sulaiman Abu Ghaith defended and justified the attacks. This led to significant controversy and accusations by the United States government that Al Jazeera was engaging in propaganda on behalf of terrorists. Al Jazeera countered that it was merely making information available without comment, and several western television channels later followed suit in broadcasting portions of the tapes. Analyst James Dunnigan assigns al Jazeera a primary role in the rise of religious hatred and terrorism in the modern Muslim world.^[84]

On November 13, during the US invasion of Afghanistan, 2001, a U.S. missile strike destroyed Al Jazeera's office in Kabul. There were no casualties.^[40]

At a 3 October 2001, press conference, Colin Powell tried to persuade the emir of Qatar to shut down Al Jazeera.^[85][86][87]

On 12 October 2008, Al Jazeera broadcast interviews with people attending a Sarah Palin 2008 United States presidential election rally in St. Clairsville, Ohio, with interviewees making comments about Barack Obama such as "he regards white people as trash". The report got over 2 million views on Youtube^[88] and elicited comment by Colin Powell: "Those kind of images going out on Al Jazeera are killing us."^[89] Following this the Washington Post ran an op-ed,^[90] claiming the news channel was deliberately encouraging "anti-American sentiment overseas",^[90] which was criticized by Al Jazeera as "a gratuitous and uninformed shot at Al Jazeera's motives", as the report was just one of "hundreds of hours of diverse coverage".^[89]

Detention of Sami Al Hajj

Al Jazeera cameraman Sami Al Hajj, a Sudanese national, was detained while in transit to Afghanistan in December 2001, and up until May 2008 was held, without charge, as an enemy combatant in Camp Delta at Guantánamo Bay. The reasons for his detention remain unknown, although the US' official statement on all detainees is that they are security threats. Reporters Without Borders have repeatedly expressed concern over Al Hajj's detention,^[91] mentioned Al Hajj in their Annual Worldwide Press Freedom Index,^[92] and launched a petition for his release.^[93] On 23 November 2005, Sami Al Hajj's lawyer Clive Stafford-Smith reported that, during (125 of 130) interviews, U.S. officials had questioned Sami as to whether Al Jazeera was a front for al-Qaeda.^[94]

Dalal al-Maghrabi

On July 5, 2008 Al-Jazeera TV caused controversy by dedicating an Arabic-language program to Dalal Mughrabi. In the program, the host allegedly "glorified" the Coastal Road incident in which al-Maghrabi and eleven other fighters allegedly killed a total of 36 Israelis, and declared that "Heroism transcends the gender divide", referring to Dalal al-Maghrabi.^[95][96]

Satellite disruption

During the 2010 FIFA World Cup, Al Jazeera Sports' transmission in the Arab world went down without explanation in the first half, while the second half transmission was patchy. Al Jazeera and FIFA said they were working to figure out the cause of the disruption to Al Jazeera's official broadcasting rights.^[97]

Documentaries

• Al Jazeera's coverage of the invasion of Iraq was the focus of an award-winning 2004 documentary film, Control Room by Egyptian-American director Jehane Noujaim.
• In July 2003, PBS broadcast a documentary, called Exclusive to al-Jazeera on its program "Wide Angle."^[98]
• Another documentary, Al-Jazeera, An Arab Voice for Freedom or Demagoguery? The UNC Tour^[99] was filmed two months after the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack.

Awards

• In December 1999, Ibn Rushd (Averoes) Fund for Freedom of Thought in Berlin awarded the "Ibn Rushd Award" for media and journalism for the year to Al Jazeera.^[100]
• In March 2003, Al Jazeera was awarded by Index on Censorship for its "courage in circumventing censorship and contributing to the free exchange of information in the Arab world."^[101]
• In April 2004, Webby Awards nominated Al Jazeera as one of the five best news Web sites, along with BBC News, National Geographic, RocketNews and The Smoking Gun. According to Tifanny Schlain, the founder of the Webby Awards, this caused a controversy as [other media organisations] "felt it was a risk-taking site".^[102]
• In 2004, Al Jazeera was voted by brandchannel.com readers as the fifth most influential global brand behind Apple Computer, Google, Ikea and Starbucks.^[103]

Competitors

• In response to Al Jazeera, a group of Saudi investors created Al Arabiya in the first quarter of 2003. Despite (especially initial) skepticism over the station's Saudi funding (cf. History) and a perception of censorship of anti-Saudi content,^[104] Al Arabiya has successfully emulated Al Jazeera, garnered a significant audience share, and has also gotten similarly involved in controversy – Al Arabiya has been severely criticised by the Iraqi and US authorities and has also had journalists killed on the job.^[105]

• In order to counter a perceived bias of Al Jazeera, the U.S. government in 2004 founded Al Hurra ("the free one"). Al Hurra is forbidden to broadcast to the US under the provisions of the Smith-Mundt Act. A Zogby poll found that 1% of Arab viewers watch Al Hurra as their first choice.^[106] while an Ipsos-MENA poll from March-May 2008 showed that Alhurra was drawing more viewers in Iraq than Al Jazeera.^[107] Citing these figures, Alvin Snyder referred to Alhurra as a "go to" network in Iraq.^[108]

• Since the launch of Al Jazeera English, Al Jazeera directly competes with BBC World and CNN International, as do a growing number of other international broadcasters such as France 24, and Russia Today.

• Another competitor is Al-Alam, Established in 2003 by Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, it broadcasts continuously. It seeks to address the most challenging issues of the Muslim and Arab world and the Middle East.

• A further competitor is the Rusiya Al-Yaum channel - the first Russian TV news channel broadcasting in Arabic and head-quartered in Moscow, Russia. Rusiya Al-Yaum started broadcasting on 4 May 2007 at 7:00 (Moscow time). The Channel is established and operated by RIA Novosti, the same news agency that launched Russia Today TV in December 2005 to deliver a Russian perspective on news to English-speaking audiences, and "Rusiya Al-Yaum" is indeed a translation of "Russia Today" into Arabic.

• The BBC launched BBC Arabic Television on 11 March 2008, an Arabic-language news channel in North Africa and the Middle East.^[109] This is the second time that the BBC is launching an Arabic language TV channel; as mentioned above, the demise of the original BBC World Service Arabic TV channel had at least contributed to the founding of the original Al Jazeera Arabic TV channel.

• Since Euronews started broadcasting its programs in Arabic on the 12 July 2008, it has entered into competition with Al Jazeera. Arabic is the eighth language in which Euronews is published, after English, French, German, Russian, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese.

Network

Al Jazeera operates a number of specialty channels besides its original flagship news channel. As of early 2007, the Al Jazeera network's TV channels include:^[110]

• Al Jazeera

the original international Arabic-language 24h news channel

launched in 1996

www.aljazeera.net/channel

• Al Jazeera Sports

a popular Arabic-language sports channel

launched in 2003

aljazeerasport.net

Al Jazeera Sports +1

launched in 2004

Al Jazeera Sports +2

Al Jazeera Sports +3

launched in 2008

Al Jazeera Sports +4

launched in 2008

Al Jazeera Sports +5

launched in Aug,2009

Al Jazeera Sports +6

launched in Aug,2009

Al Jazeera Sports +7

launched in Aug,2009

Al Jazeera Sports +8

launched in Aug,2009

Al Jazeera Sports HD

• Al Jazeera Mubasher (aka Al Jazeera Live)

a live politics and public interest channel (similar to C-SPAN, Houses of the Oireachtas Channel or BBC Parliament), which broadcasts conferences in real time without editing or commentary

launched in 2005

• Al Jazeera Children's Channel (aka JCC)

a children's interest channel

launched in 2005

www.jcctv.net

• Al Jazeera English

a global English-language 24h news channel

launched in 2006

english.aljazeera.net

• Al Jazeera Documentary Channel

an Arabic language documentary channel

launched in 2007

doc.aljazeera.net

• Al Jazeera Training Center

an Arabic language Training Center

Training.aljazeera.net

References

Further reading

• Abdul-Mageed, M. M. (2008). Online News Sites and Journalism 2.0: Reader Comments on Al Jazeera Arabic. TripleC: Cognition, Communication, Co-operation, 6(2), 59-76. Abstract and full article: Blogspot.com
• Abdul-Mageed, M. M., and Herring, S. C. (2008). Arabic and English news coverage on aljazeera.net. In: F. Sudweeks, H. Hrachovec, and C. Ess (Eds.), Proceedings of Cultural Attitudes Towards Technology and Communication 2008 (CATaC'08), Nîmes, France, 24 June-27. Abstract and full article: Blogspot.com
• M. Arafa, P.J. Auter, & K. Al-Jaber (2005), Hungry for news and information: Instrumental use of Al-Jazeera TV among viewers in the Arab World and Arab Diaspora, Journal of Middle East Media, 1(1), 21-50
• Marc Lynch (2005), Voices of the New Arab Public: Iraq, al-Jazeera, and Middle East Politics Today, Columbia University Press
• N. Miladi (2004), Al-Jazeera, ISBN 1-86020-593-3
• Hugh Miles (2004), Al Jazeera: How Arab TV news challenged the world, Abacus, ISBN 0-3491-1807-8,
  • aka Al Jazeera: How Arab TV News challenges America, Grove Press, ISBN 0-8021-1789-9 (2005 reprint),
  • aka Al Jazeera: The inside story of the Arab news channel that is challenging the West, Grove Press, ISBN 0-8021-4235-4 (2006 reprint)
• Mohammed el-Nawawy and Adel Iskandar (2002), Al-Jazeera: How the Free Arab News Network Scooped the World and Changed the Middle East, Westview Press, ISBN 0-8133-4017-9,
  • aka Al-Jazeera: The story of the network that is rattling governments and redefining modern journalism, aka Al-Jazeera: Ambassador of the Arab World, Westview Press/Basic Books/Perseus Books, ISBN 0-8133-4149-3 (2003 reprint)
• Erik C. Nisbet, Matthew C. Nisbet, Dietram Scheufele, and James Shanahan (2004), Public diplomacy, television news, and Muslim opinionPDF (187 KiB), Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics 9 (2), 11-37
• Donatella Della Ratta (2005), Al Jazeera. Media e società arabe nel nuovo millennio (Italian), Bruno Mondadori, ISBN

8-8424-9282-5

• Naomi Sakr (2002), Satellite Realms: Transnational Television, Globalization and the Middle East, I.B. Tauris, ISBN 1-8606-4689-1
• Tatham, Steve (2006), Losing Arab Hearts & Minds: The Coalition, Al-Jazeera & Muslim Public Opinion, Hurst & Co (London), Published 1 Jan 2006, ISBN 0-9725-5723-7
• Mohamed Zayani (2005), The Al Jazeera Phenomenon: Critical Perspectives On New Arab Media, Paradigm Publishers, ISBN 1-5945-1126-8
• Augusto Valeriani (2005), Il giornalismo arabo, (Italian) Roma, Carocci ISBN 8843032801

External links

• Official Al Jazeera websites:
  • (Arabic) general Al Jazeera website
  • (English) Al Jazeera English website
• Al Jazeera: demographics, programs, history
• Al Jazeera demographics
• Al Jazeera, Radio Sawa Founders Report on Media in the Middle East, UCLA Ronald W. Burkle Center for International Relations, posted 11/4/2003, retrieved 01/26/2007
• US-Arab Relations – 4 October 2006 lecture by Hafez Al Mirazi, host of the Al Jazeera (Arabic) talk show "From Washington", at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Realplayer video).
• Arabic in Graphic Design: Al Jazeera's Cartouche, an interactive guide to the Arabic calligraphy of the network's logo.

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