Aljazeera - The Phantom Menace

We often hear of politicians and people talking about freedom of the press and the right to voice our opinions. Here in the West, we have a vast variety of sources from which we can obtain our news and information, whether it be newspapers, magazines, radio or television, not to mention the net.

Yet I wonder how accurate the news and information we receive every day, actually is. Here in Adelaide, our two local newspapers are owned and run by News Corp. The commercial TV stations are run by the three powerful networks which control most of the TV stations across the country. The same, but to a lesser extent, are our radio stations which are part of national networks. The only independent TV stations we have in Australia are the ABC and SBS networks, which are government owned but independently run [similar to the way the BBC is managed]. Our radio stations are in a slightly better situation with a higher number of them independently owned.

Yet their news feeds all come from a small group of sources like CNN, BBC, AP etc, and the vast majority of those sources are either US or UK based.

Years ago, I used to do volunteer work for a local community radio station as a weekly current affairs news reader. We used to sit down on Friday, read and edit the dispatches we received overnight from SBS [which they sent to us unedited], record the show and place it on air Monday morning. By the time our show would go to air, the news was already a week old. These same stories would appear as "news" in the local media up to a week after we broadcast them. On many occasions, what the news feed reported and what was published by the mainstream media was totally different.

Through this experience, I begun to source my news direct from overseas either by tuning in to overseas radio stations or picking up overseas newspapers. When I finally got internet access, I sourced my news through the overseas media websites. My fascination with what's happening around the world was fuelled by my political involvement, which at the time was a major part of my life.

Today, I don't bother reading the local papers or watching the news. My information is sourced from Google News, which links to over 4000 media sources worldwide. From there, I choose the stories that interest me and read the articles from various international media outlets. It still amazes me on how different outlets report the same event but change it to suit their needs.

Which takes me to the point of this article.

In 1996, the tiny Arab state of Qatar established a media company called Aljazeera. Unlike other Middle Eastern media outlets, Aljazeera was given total independence as to what and how it reported its news. This in itself, was unique for the Middle East where the media is strictly controlled by the government. This editorial independence has seen Aljazeera break not only news stories that other Middle Eastern media wouldn't show, but also taken on issues which has earned them the ire of the West and the Arab world. Further, this independence has made it the number one media source that people in the Middle East rely on, similar to the way we Westerners view the BBC. Today, Aljazeera is the fifth most recognised brand in the world [similar to Google and Apple].

Aljazeera is seen by many as being anti-western, anti-American purely because it doesn't tow the line of how the West perceives the news should be reported. Why? Mainly because Aljazeera has in the past broadcast events from a different perspective which contradicted the Western "view". Events like when the US was overthrowing Saddam Hussein and was the telling the world that they had secured locations, Aljazeera reporters were beaming live reports of fighting still occuring in these places. Or more notoriously, broadcasting Bin Laden tapes without [from the US perspective] getting "approval" for them.

This "view" of Aljazeera in the west, has this week resulted in the BBC announcing that it is cancelling 10 other services so as to launch an Arabic station to "win the hearts and minds" of the Arab world, and go head-to-head with Aljazeera. The USA tried this with their version of Aljazeera and failed, and personally I can not see the BBC achieving its goal either.

Aljazeera might be Arabic in origin and funded by the bottomless money pit of the Omar of Qatar, but the staff that run Aljazeera are actually ex-BBC staff who used to work for the now defunct Arabic channel the BBC used to own in the early 1990s.

If one takes the time to actually read the reports coming out of Aljazeera and match them with those from the BBC or the Washington Post [to name a couple], Aljazeera's reporting is much the same. They aren't a radical Arabic network hellbent on being anti-Western, they simply report the news the rest of the world reports, but from an Arabic perspective. Similar to how an Australian network broadcasts a news report from an Australian view.

Personally, the view expressed by certain Western leaders and media about Aljazeera, is inaccurate and politically driven. In one respect, I personally am grateful that stations like Aljazeera do exist because they can go out and report the news from an alternative perspective, without having to bow to Governments or media moguls like the Murdochs, Packers and Turners of the world.

Today, my news comes from Google News' 4000+ feeds, but my bookmarks include not only the BBC, Washington Post, ABC [Australia] and The Gaurdian, but also Pravda, Athens News Agency, Xinhuanet and Aljazeera.

The media is there to provide accurate information as to what is happening out there in the world. The best way for anyone to be informed is to source the news from various outlets and read the alternative perspectives given. For this reason, Aljazeera is not the phantom menace that certain western governments portray them to be. They, like every other media outlet, simply provide an alternative view of events, and it's up to us to decide whether we believe or disbelieve what they report.

It's called "making your own mind up" and "independent thinking". And I for one, will decide what I read and where I read it. Not what a politician tells me to do.