Page 40 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

Al-Jazeera | 1

Contextual objectivity can be witnessed in virtually every media outlet today.
All media have inherent biases, and all news is manufactured to appeal to a
certain audience. That is why people prefer one network over another. But the
question is: how do networks strike the balance that provides audiences with
a true representation of real events while still appealing to public sensibilities?
While most news networks engage in contextual objectivity, consciously or
otherwise, in their day-to-day coverage, Al-Jazeera is perhaps the first network
to articulate this approach as a network philosophy. The channel’s motto, “The
Opinion and the Other Opinion,” repeated frequently during program intermis-
sions, is an indication that the channel aspires to cover all sides to a particular
story, and that it has instituted a pluralistic media discourse. Al-Jazeera believes
that public discourse can only be equitable and effective if all possible opinions
and views are expressed and demonstrated equally, whether they are Israeli,
Palestinian, American, or Turk. Al-Jazeera’s philosophy suggests that “truth” is
the culmination of multiple conglomerated subjectivities (see el-Nawawy and
Iskandar 2002).
But in the process of trying to live up to its motto, Al-Jazeera has also tried to
appeal to the values and beliefs of its Arab audiences. This seemingly paradoxi-
cal dilemma is for some a form of contextual objectivity. Al-Jazeera has been
telling the American side of the story in Iraq, even as it sympathizes with the
plight of the Iraqi people for independence. Its sympathy with the Palestinian
cause does not deter it from interviewing Israeli journalists and politicians.

ConTExTuaL oBJECTiviTy in aL-JazEEra’s CovEragE
oF amEriCa’s “war on TError”
Contextual objectivity on Al-Jazeera is best explained in the framework of
the network’s coverage of America’s “war on terror,” or as Al-Jazeera refers to
it, the “so-called war on terror.” This war, which has been launched by the U.S.
administration in the aftermath of the September 11 events of 2001, has sparked
major debates over the definition of terror, its social and political implications,
and the extent of the news media’s adherence to the journalistic principles of
balance, truth, and objectivity, especially during times of political strife.
The world media systems have not agreed upon a universal definition of terror.
In fact, the concept of terrorism is “contested, value-laden and open to multiple
meanings located within broader cultural frames, so that, to some extent, terror-
ism is in the eye of the beholder” (Norris et al. 2003, p. 6). Each media system may
perceive a terrorist event differently. For some, it may be a suicide; for others
it may be a martyrdom. That is why one man’s terrorist is another man’s free-
dom fighter. Al-Jazeera, in its portrayal of practitioners of violence as either “ter-
rorists” or “freedom fighters,” reflects its political culture, its value system, and
ideological and commercial interests that tend to drive media anywhere. “This
raises the very question of whether and to what extent [Al-Jazeera] can be truly
objective when reporting from the Arab world about issues that matter to Arabs
the most.” Or yet another question: “Can an Arab channel reporting on Arab
issues remove itself from its Arab perspective?” (Zayani 2005, p. 18).