Al Jazeera’s bid to expand U.S. audience may be a tough sell

Daily News Article   —   Posted on January 8, 2013

image574(By Joe Flint and Meg James, Los Angeles Times) – [Arab government TV news station] Al Jazeera has built a formidable presence around the globe, but the Qatar news service has struggled to establish itself in the United States.

With the acquisition of Current TV, a cable network available in more than 40 million homes, the media company could have the platform it needs to establish itself here and change perceptions about its editorial mission.

“Our commitment to the voice of the voiceless, bringing stories from underreported regions across the world and putting the human being at the center of our news agenda, is at the heart of what we do,” Al Jazeera Director General Ahmed bin Jassim Al Thani said in a statement.

Current TV, founded by former Vice President Al Gore and legal entrepreneur Joel Hyatt, catered to viewers with liberal sensibilities. But it has had a very small audience.

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Emir of Qatar Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani

Al Jazeera plans to give Current TV a significant makeover, rename the network Al Jazeera America and turn it into a news channel with a heavy focus on international coverage. The mix of news for Al Jazeera America will be 60% domestic and 40% international, said Stan Collender, a spokesman for the network.

Al Jazeera, which has deep pockets [much money], said it will more than double Current TV’s staff to more than 300 and plans to have 10 bureaus in the United States to complement its international reporting. Al Jazeera already has more than 80 bureaus and more than 400 reporters around the world.

Although only available on television in a handful of U.S. cities, Al Jazeera English has built a loyal following among decision makers in Washington. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell told Gore that Al Jazeera is the only cable news network he watches, according to Hyatt. As part of the plans to build Al Jazeera America, the company will phase out Al Jazeera English service from U.S. TV and Internet.

Despite its reputation [with Colin Powell], Al Jazeera has struggled for more than a decade with charges that its coverage of global terrorism was either anti-American or even pro-Al Qaeda. …

Al Jazeera executives recognize the company has an image issue but counter that a bigger showcase for its work will solve that problem.

“We know there are some folks that don’t like us,” Collender said. “The best way for us to show that there is no bias is to get people to watch.”
…

Collender countered that Al Jazeera believes there is an appetite for serious news and added that the majority of coverage will be about America. …

[Former Current TV owner  (and former) Vice President Al] Gore has agreed to remain as an adviser to Al Jazeera America. …

Reprinted here for educational purposes only. May not be reproduced on other websites without permission from the Los Angeles Times. Visit the website at latimes.com.



Background

Qatar and emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani:

  • Ruled by the Al Thani family since the mid-1800s, Qatar transformed itself from a poor British protectorate noted mainly for pearling into an independent state with significant oil and natural gas revenues.
  • As of 2007, oil and natural gas revenues had enabled Qatar to attain the highest per capita income in the world.
  • Qatar has not experienced the level of unrest or violence seen in other Near Eastern and North African countries in 2010-11, due in part to its immense wealth. (from the CIA World FactBook)
  • Qatar's international image is bolstered in part by the Doha-based Al Jazeera news network.
  • Since his rise to power in 1995, Qatar's emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani has hosted several Islamist leaders in exile while Qatar's Al-Jazeera pan-Arab news broadcaster has provided an open platform for outlawed Islamists to air their views.
  • The emir has maintained good relations with Hamas in particular.  And in October he became the first Arab head of state to visit the Hamas controlled Gaza Strip since 2007, a trip designed to increase political and economic support to the Islamist movement boycotted by the international community. (from middle-east online)

  • From "Inconvenient Truths About Al Jazeera" by L. Gordon Crovitz:
    (The Wall Street Journal 1/6/13)

    • Al Gore and co-founder Joel Hyatt said that before selling Current TV to Al Jazeera, they did "significant due diligance."  Due diligence might have included a review of the close journalistic coverage over the years of Al Jazeera's Arabic and English broadcasts, which discloses the unsurprising fact that the network reflects the interests of the government that runs it [the emir of Qatar] - making it akin to Vladimir Putin's Russia Today and Beijing's Xinhua [state-run news from Russia and China]. The emir of Qatar, Hamid bin Khalifa Al Thani, appointed his cousin as chairman of Al Jazeera. The emir was last in the news for donating $400 million to Hamas, a terrorist organization.
    • In 2007, the liberal Nation magazine said that "[Al Jazeera] field reports are overwhelmingly negative with violent footage played over and over. . . . There's a clear underlying message: that the way out of this spiral is political Islam." Dave Marash, formerly of ABC's "Nightline," quit Al Jazeera's English-language station in 2008 when producers in Qatar ordered up anti-American programming. 
    • In 2009, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, host of the network's most popular Arabic-language show, "Shariah and Life," said on air (also available on YouTube): "Oh, Allah, take this oppressive Jewish, Zionist band of people. Oh Allah, do not spare a single one of them. Oh Allah, count their numbers and kill them, down to the very last one." Perhaps Mr. Gore doesn't have access to YouTube. 
    • Judea Pearl, whose son Daniel was the Wall Street Journal reporter kidnapped and beheaded in 2002 by al Qaeda terrorists, once had high hopes that Al Jazeera would be more open than other Arab government media. But he has written that the network has "committed itself unconditionally and unabashedly to the service of Hamas and Hezbollah. . . . It is no longer a clash with journalistic standards but a clash with the norms of civilized behavior."
    • So it's no surprise that before buying Current, Al Jazeera managed to get access to only a few million cable households in the U.S.

  • Distributors of Al Jazeera America:

    • [Soon after] Al Jazeera [bought out Current TV] one large distributor, Time Warner Cable, said it would no longer carry Current TV or its replacement.
    • Time Warner Cable was able to drop Current TV from almost 10 million homes because of a clause in its distribution agreement that allowed it to end the deal in the event of an ownership change. Time Warner Cable has been threatening to drop Current TV and its small viewership for some time.
    • Time Warner Cable, which is not a part of media giant Time Warner Inc., released a statement saying, "We are keeping an open mind, and as the service develops, we will evaluate whether it makes sense, for our customers, to launch the network."
    • Other major distributors, including Comcast Corp. and DirecTV, both of which had small stakes in Current TV, are contractually obliged to continue carrying the channel.
    • Derek Baine, a cable television analyst... predicts that Al Jazeera will continue to be a hard sell for pay TV distributors.
    • "They are going to continue to face resistance," Baine said. "There has been no interest on the part of distributors to carry Al Jazeera. They don't think American viewers will be interested in this type of news coverage." (from the Los Angeles Times article)