Page 36 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

Al-Jazeera | 1

Al-Jazeera is an anomaly that has defied all odds. It came out in a region that
has not been known for its free and open media environment; it was launched
by Qatar, a small peninsular country in the Persian Gulf that hardly had any im-
pact on the Arab media scene before Al-Jazeera; it challenged the Western news
networks’ monopoly over the global news flow; and it gave the Arab people a
platform through which they can express their opinions without red lines, listen
to different points of view, and engage in lively and bold political debates about
issues that used to be buried under the carpet of government censorship before
the advent of Al-Jazeera. When covering the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the
station includes a wide spectrum of international opinion, but has been criti-
cized in some official U.S. circles for including graphic images of the U.S. bomb-
ing in the Middle East. Its daring coverage has made it the news station of choice
for more than 40 million Arab viewers worldwide.

al-Jazeera tiMeline

November 1, 1996—Al-Jazeera launches with a start-up grant of $140 million from the
Qatari emir.
January 1, 1999—Expands from 6 hours a day to 24 hours a day.
October 7, 2001—Broadcasts a statement by Osama bin Laden two hours after the U.S.-
led coalition begins military strikes against Afghanistan.
October 30, 2001—When asked by a correspondent from Al-Jazeera’s Washington bu-
reau about the authenticity of pictures showing Afghani children as war casualties, U.S.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld accuses the network of propounding Taliban
propaganda.
November 13, 2001—The United States launches a missile attack on Al-Jazeera’s of-
fice in Kabul, Afghanistan. Although no Al-Jazeera staff are hurt in the attack, the
building is destroyed and some employees’ homes are damaged. In a letter to
Al-Jazeera dated December 6, 2001, U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense Victoria
Clarke states, “The building we struck was a known al Qaeda facility in central
Kabul.”
March 4, 2003—The New York Stock Exchange bans Al-Jazeera (as well as several other
news organizations) from its trading floor indefinitely, citing “security concerns” as the
official reason. A few months later the ban was rescinded, according to a New York
Stock Exchange spokesperson.
April 8, 2003—U.S. bombs hit Al-Jazeera’s office in Baghdad, killing reporter Tareq
Ayyoub. At a briefing in Doha, Qatar, the network’s managing director says the Penta-
gon was informed of the network’s location in Baghdad several months before the war
started. Brigadier General Vincent K. Brooks says of the Al-Jazeera attack, “This coali-
tion does not target journalists. We don’t know every place journalists are operating
on the battlefield. It’s a dangerous place, indeed.”
September 23, 2003—Iraqi interim government suspends Al-Jazeera (and Al-Arabiya, an
Arab news channel based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates) from reporting on official