Al-Jazeera Plans to Battle Western Media ~~ plans to hit the airwaves Nov. 15 .....

Las Vegas Sun ^ | November 01, 2006 at 13:15:43 PST | JIM KRANE ASSOCIATED PRESS

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

DOHA, Qatar (AP) -

Al-Jazeera's taboo-smashing newscasts regularly vex politicians in Washington, but not nearly as much as they anger leaders in the Arab world, where the news channel has been banned from operating in 18 countries at one time or another.

Now, the network is launching its biggest gamble on its 10th anniversary - an English-language channel with an Arab perspective. Al-Jazeera International plans to hit the airwaves Nov. 15 and hopes to steal viewers from CNN and the BBC.

Feisty and sometimes graphic coverage of global carnage is an Al-Jazeera specialty, as is bracing commentary that has shaken up the Arab world and rattled the West.

"We have an edge over the other networks: We're already based in the Middle East. And we have a different perspective," director Wadah Khanfar told a news conference at the network's Doha headquarters Wednesday.

Al-Jazeera has been through a lot in 10 years, with three staffers killed in Iraq, another locked away without charge at the U.S. prison facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and a correspondent who interviewed Osama bin Laden convicted on terror charges in Spain.

Those it has covered have also suffered. The network is credited with waking up Arab TV viewers with brash discussions of banned topics. It questioned autocrats across the region and brought a large dollop of diplomatic clout to Qatar, a tiny sheikdom on the Persian Gulf. A frustrated President Bush even talked of bombing the channel's headquarters in 2004, according to a leaked British government memo.

"It made the airwaves uncontrollable," Amjad Nasser wrote Wednesday in the London-based pan-Arab daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi.

The fear Al-Jazeera inspires in the Arab world is best seen in Saudi Arabia, where the network has never been allowed to send a reporter - even those making personal pilgrimages to Mecca.

Worse, a Saudi boycott of the channel bars Al-Jazeera advertisers from doing business in the kingdom. The boycott has chased away almost all advertisers, leaving Al-Jazeera dependent on the deep pockets of Qatar's royal family.

"We are totally blocked from Saudi Arabia," Khanfar said. The station's employees are also banned from Iraq, Tunisia and Algeria, staffers said.

The network declines to say virtually anything about its finances, but it doesn't appear to be having money trouble. Al-Jazeera International has hired more than 500 staffers, poaching some of the world's best-known journalists from networks including the British Broadcasting Corp., CNN, CNBC and ABC. It will broadcast in ultra-expensive high-definition TV with four chief broadcast centers rather than CNN's two or BBC's one.

Although its one-time anchor, Riz Khan, is among those who departed for Al-Jazeera International, CNN International said it welcomed the new competition.

"We're not worried," spokeswoman Susanna Flood said. "News channels are judged by what they do and not what they say they'll do."

Al-Jazeera says its goal is to reverse the information flow to the world's 1 billion English speakers who now have no choice but to watch Western-oriented broadcasters. Al-Jazeera International also appears to have natural audiences among the world's 1.2 billion Muslims, most of whom don't speak Arabic.

Before taking on the big networks, however, it first needs to be seen, which requires coaxing hundreds of global cable TV operators to carry its signal. This has been tough in many countries, the station's commercial director Lindsey Oliver said - not least the United States, where the Bush administration has accused Al-Jazeera of anti-American bias.

Some U.S. cable carriers are adopting a "show-me" policy, waiting to see what sort of opposition it generates before agreeing to carry it, said Michael Holtzman, a PR spokesman for the network.

"There's no better way to demystify Al-Jazeera than by putting it on the air," Holtzman said. "Most Americans don't speak Arabic, so they haven't had the opportunity to draw their own conclusions."

On Nov. 15, the new 24-hour network will be available to at least 40 million households worldwide via cable in Western Europe, the Middle East, Australia, Malaysia and a few other places, Oliver said.

In the United States, she said, at least one major cable provider and one major satellite provider will carry it, but she declined to identify them.

Comcast, the largest U.S. cable provider, does not plan to be one of them, spokeswoman Jenny Moyer said.

Cox Communications, the third-largest provider, has talked with Al-Jazeera but has not decided whether to carry it, Cox media relations director Stephanie Davis said.

Al-Jazeera has been trying to smooth its entry into the vital U.S. market by casting the channel as the ideal forum for the Bush administration to talk to the Muslim world. Al-Jazeera has had meetings in the White House, with members of Congress and at the State Department and Pentagon, Oliver said.

It has also met with American Jewish media leaders and interest groups to discuss its portrayal of Israel, Holtzman said.

Israel, one of the few countries in the Middle East that has never banned Al-Jazeera, is itself a lucrative target market. Oliver said she was in discussions with Israeli providers.

"There's huge interest for this channel in Israel," she said. "That wouldn't be the case if we were going to be unbalanced."

The network also said it was launching a pan-Arab newspaper, also called Al-Jazeera, to compete with other Arabic dailies.

---

On the Net:

http://english.aljazeera.net

[SevenofNine]

Just breatheeee LOL!

Come on breathe

[rjp2005]

A definite concern. Knock their satellite out of the sky.
Propaganda is deadlier than people realize. The Islamic stuff can tempt people who are spiritually bankrupt without them realizing it - like Kilz Primer seeping into your bloodstream.
Imagine if Hitler had satellite English broadcasts of the Aryan News Network back then.

[mylife]

It wouldn't surprise me L0L
The same moonbats that are against globilization adore muticultural talking heads so long as those talking heads hate America.

Wolf Blitzer isn't foreign enough for their sensibilities, Christiann Amanpour? Phllbbtt!... why shes just to darn patriotic...

[BlazingArizona]

Knock their satellite out of the sky

And let's time it for right in the middle of the big Streisand special.

[doug from upland]

Oh, great. We battle the WASHPOST, LASLIMES, NYSLIMES, and now AL-JAZEERA.

[D-Chivas]

Al-Jazeera International plans to hit the airwaves Nov. 15 and hopes to steal viewers from CNN and the BBC

That's about right!

[wodinoneeye]

COMING SOON TO THE PBS CHANNEL NEAR YOU ..........

[Nathan Zachary]

"Al-Jazeera International plans to hit the airwaves Nov. 15 and hopes to steal viewers from CNN and the BBC"

,b>Gee wouldnt it be a shocker if they actually pulled it off?

Not really. MSM already quotes Al- Jazzera news clips as "gospel truth", so in effect they've already done much of the advertizing for them to ensure a healthy start and capture of their market share.

All 12 million Muzzies in the USA will automatically tune into it, in order to get live shots from "back home", which they are homesick for. Hollywood blood, guts, and gore just doesn't compare to good old "happy assura day" blood fests, and "Allah inspired" public hangings, beheadings, hand and foot chopping, and of course, the grandest, most fun of all, public stonings where the whole community participates.

These are images of the normal, everyday culture they left behind, something western media wouldn't DARE show on western airways, not for fear of offending (which they won't) muslims, but for fear of telling the truth of this barbaric blood cult.

Then of course there will be many leftist loons who will tune in, in hopes of gathering more "proof" of how evil the USA is.

Al- Jazzera will not only capture their market share, they will probably be able to buy out old media before long.

Happy Assura day (a celebration of one of the Shia's caliphs death)

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

sickening.,.....

[Stallone]

CNN is most certainly at risk.

After all, Al Jazeera presenting the same news in the first person, rather than through their American mouthpiece CNN, eliminates the middleman.

[Stallone]

Death to America is a perfect sign-off for Little Katie Commie.

[johnthebaptistmoore]

Does this mean that there's finally going to be a channel which will be showing what beheadings and shooting executions are really all about?

[Alia]

Center for Creative Voices in Media Blog

snip:

FCC Commish Adelstein on Media Consolidation and Creatives Please read this excellent and important commentary on media ownership by FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein that appears in the latest Television Week. He truly "gets it."

The Supreme Court has held it is in the interest of our democracy to ensure that there is the widest possible dissemination of information from "diverse and antagonistic" sources. Notwithstanding this constitutional right, we learned that many members of the creative community are dissatisfied with the current level of access. We heard award-winning directors, producers, actors, musicians and writers recount their experiences about how a concentrated media industry has stifled content creation, talent development and entrepreneurship. Link:

Also check out "The Media Reform Campaign". I see they've taken down a number of their most revealing articles.

Other links:

Our Media Voice

Common Cause

snip:

Media and Democracy Program

Increasingly, the media's failure to provide diverse viewpoints and unbiased information is undermining the strength of our democracy. Dissatisfaction with news coverage of events ranging from the 2000 presidential election to the war in Iraq has given media issues a new sense of urgency. The more corporate conglomerates buy up independent news outlets, the fewer voices and perspectives the public hears, and the less accountable broadcasters are to the public.

Common Cause is working to ensure that the media meet their obligations to serve the public by promoting diversity, accessibility, and accountability among media corporations and the government agencies that regulate the media. Our Media and Democracy program has four goals:

...
Developing and advancing a long-term agenda for a more democratic media.

The reopening of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, posing the promise of media reforms that guarantee the public interest will be served across media platforms.

FCC action on media ownership rules that will affect the degree of media consolidation and vertical integration that the government will permit.

Legislation furthering the transition from analog to digital spectrum, which offers opportunities for the reform community to secure more broadcaster accountability, as well as public funds (a percentage of proceeds from spectrum auctions) for public broadcasting and noncommercial media, and an allocation of unlicensed spectrum for public use

[Alia]

We need the Terrorist Surveillance Program. Very much.

[Alia]

Crosslink: CNN's Paula Zahn: Andrew Sullivan and Christopher Hitchens 'A Pair of Conservatives'

[winodog]

I was just thinking almost the same thing. I thought it was funny that the oneworlders dont want aljizzera to join the global world order.