Page 37 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

1 | Al-Jazeera

government activities for two weeks for what it says was support of recent attacks on
government members and U.S. forces.
August 7, 2004—The Iraqi interim government shuts down the Baghdad office of Al-
Jazeera for one month, citing national security concerns. Later, the shutdown is ex-
tended indefinitely, and the offices sealed. Al-Jazeera continues to report from Iraq
through a network of stringers.
June 2005—Rumsfeld accuses Al-Jazeera of encouraging Islamic military groups by airing
beheadings of American troops in Iraq. In response, the network says in a statement
that “Al-Jazeera . . . has never at any time transmitted pictures of killings or beheadings
and . . . any talk about this is absolutely unfounded.”
November 15, 2006—Al-Jazeera International is launched with four bureaus in Washing-
ton, DC; London; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; and Doha, Qatar.

Adapted from the Project for Journalism Excellence: http://www.journalism.org/node/1530.

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Al-Jazeera, which means “the island” in Arabic, was launched by Qatar’s pro-
gressive emir (the Arabic equivalent of a prince) Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-
Thani in November 1996 as part of his move to introduce democratization to
his tiny state in the Persian Gulf. The British-educated emir, who overthrew his
father after a nonviolent coup in 1995, planned for Al-Jazeera to be an indepen-
dent and nonpartisan satellite TV network free from government scrutiny and
manipulation.
The launching of Al-Jazeera followed the termination of a contract in April
1996 between Rome-based, Saudi-owned Orbit Radio and Television Ser-
vice and the Arabic TV division of the BBC News Service. After the failure of
that venture, the majority of the BBC’s Arabic TV service editorial staff mem-
bers were recruited by Al-Jazeera, which also inherited the BBC network’s
editorial spirit, freedom, and style. This core group of newly recruited staff
members received their training in a Western journalistic environment, and
they were familiar with the Arab political environment, with all its nuances and
intricacies—qualifications that made them the final ingredient in the recipe for
Al-Jazeera’s eventual success (see el-Nawawy and Iskandar 2003).
The Qatari emir offered an initial pledge of around $140 million to help launch
and subsidize Al-Jazeera over a five-year period through November 2001, after
which the network was to become a financially independent commercial enter-
prise in much the same form as CNN. Al-Jazeera, however, has failed to raise
enough money through other means and is still receiving financial support from
the Qatari government, which owns some of the network’s shares.
Al-Jazeera’s popularity had been limited to the Arab world until the 9/11 at-
tacks on New York and Washington, DC. Since then, Al-Jazeera, which had
exclusive videotapes of Al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and footage
from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, has become a global news source. Today,