Al-Jazeera to tone it down for
Asia By Ioannis Gatsiounis
KUALA LUMPUR - Despite the Malaysian government's strict press regulations,
the "tell it like it
is" Arab satellite station al-Jazeera's
decision last week to make Kuala Lumpur its Asian
headquarters for a new 24-hour English-language channel
was welcome news here.
"It gives us an
opportunity to be a model and example and inspiration to
the rest of the world," Information Minister Abdul Kadir
Sheikh Fadzir said in a telephone interview.
This might be overstating the prospects,
as politicians here, in their bid to sustain
Malaysia's fragile self-confidence, are wont to do.
But al-Jazeera's presence will offer Malaysia another
crack at fulfilling its elusive dream of gaining
global recognition; for viewers in the region, the
world through al-Jazeera's lens will appear to revolve
around Kuala Lumpur, the same way it centers on Times
Square at MTV, or Hong Kong at CNN International.
The Qatar-based station plans to begin
broadcasting its English-language channel in November
2005, with a local staff of around 50 and a start-up
budget of US$200 million, Malaysian officials said. Hong
Kong and Singapore were also in the running for the
station, but insiders said Kuala Lumpur ultimately was
chosen because its operational costs are lower and it is
a stable Muslim country boasting adequate
infrastructure.
Gauging by what al-Jazeera
serves up on its Arabic-language channel (available here
with dub-overs and subtitles in Malay), one might
conclude there is little to celebrate. While many
Muslims laud the station for reporting the "truth",
others blame it for fanning what they call the flames of
hatred and self-pity hobbling the Islamic world. They
cite its repeated airings of civilian Muslim casualties
in Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel and elsewhere, obfuscation
of language (most famously calling suicide bombings
"martyrdom operations"), and the generous airtime
offered to those preaching anti-Americanism and
anti-Zionism. Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi, for instance, on
his influential program, recently issued a fatwa calling
for the killing of all foreign "occupiers" in Iraq,
military or civilian. He is hardly an exception.
But according to Nigel Parsons, managing
director of al-Jazeera, "We are seeking to appeal to a
global audience, not just Muslims. We might have a ready
and interested audience in non-Arabic speaking Muslims,
but they are not our sole target."
Put another
way, al-Jazeera will be competing in English, with
Western channels, to talk to English-speaking audiences.
And if it succeeds, said one al-Jazeera correspondent,
it will be the station's second major breakthrough in
its eight-year history, the first being its founding as
the first non-restricted 24-hour Arab news network.
Of course, to reach non-Muslims in the region,
al-Jazeera will need to drop the incendiary tone and
content that has made it a smash hit in the Middle East.
And it plans to do just that, said Nicholas Shariff
Mazlan Collins, head of assessment and marketing for the
Multimedia Development Corporation, an agency
established by the Malaysian government to lead the
development and management of the Multimedia Super
Corridor. "There will be a different editorial team,
different presenters - a different look and feel,"
Collins said.
He said all the al-Jazeera
officials who arrived in Kuala Lumpur to finalize the
deal were British or BBC-trained. "They told us they're
fed up with slants, they don't want to have an Arab
slant," he said of the station officials he met.
Conspicuous slants on other satellite news
operations, such as Rupert Murdoch-owned FOX News and
CNN, have alienated some viewers, opening the door to
hopefuls like al-Jazeera, which claims 35 million daily
viewers worldwide. But this hardly guarantees that
al-Jazeera won't seek to slant, even if it appears not
to do so; indeed, the most potent form of slanting is
that which lurks behind the guise of objectivity.
Besides, al-Jazeera has a history of "mimicking
Western norms of journalistic fairness while pandering
to pan-Arab sentiments", as Middle East expert Fouad
Ajami has noted.
It will be tempting not to
continue the trend. Al-Jazeera and the handful of Arab
competitors that have risen in its wake are arguably the
Arab world's most potent form of retaliation against
Western cultural and military dominance. With their
rise, the Arab world suddenly finds itself standing
toe-to-toe with the big guns of Western media, able to
hit back at a moment's notice. And the mass appeal of
these stations is challenging the notion that the global
media landscape is Western-dominated.
Most
Malaysian analysts interviewed for this article said
they eagerly await a greater al-Jazeera presence in the
region, regardless of what shape it takes, because it
will provide viewers with a different perspective. But
when it comes to news, celebrating diversity for its own
sake can be dangerous. Consider how big media have
tended to celebrate diversity in the divisive
post-September 11, 2001, era. Outfits such as
al-Jazeera, CNN and FOX are ossifying allegiances and
exacerbating gaps in understanding as they inexorably
pursue their nationalistic agendas.
On the other
hand, al-Jazeera is a young station. It is bold and
irreverent. It has challenged traditional barriers of
press freedom in the Middle East and has forced outlets
subservient to draconian Arab governments to either
change or risk being ignored. Who's to say al-Jazeera
can't become the same inspiring equipoise in Asia? In
places like Malaysia, which consistently lands in the
basement of press freedom indices, and where the variety
of print and broadcast media eerily mirrors the choices
on an old Soviet-era supermarket shelf, a stronger
challenge to the status quo is sorely needed. (Despite
plans to drop its incendiary tone, Collins said the
Malaysian government has no intentions of tampering with
al-Jazeera's content.)
"Al-Jazeera is nothing to
fear. They will challenge local [Malaysian] media to do
better," said Mohammad Hamdan Adnan, commissioner of
Malaysia's Human Rights Commission.
But can they
challenge people to do better? asked an Islamic studies
professor here. The answer may well lie in whether
al-Jazeera's intentions are truly to grow, or just
expand.
Ioannis Gatsiounis, a New York
native, has worked as a freelance foreign correspondent
and previously co-hosted a weekly political/cultural
radio call-in show in the US. He has been living in
Malaysia since late 2002.
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