13 January 2016

Al Jazeera's big mistake

The news that Al Jazeera, the cable news operation based in Qatar, was shutting down its American news channel this spring disappointed me. I've watched the channel quite a bit -- on my cable service it's right next door to BBC News -- and found it occasionally left of center but not in a partisan way. It was in no way religious propaganda, but Al Jazeera America failed to do the simplest thing possible to dispel any suspicion. The fatal flaw in their plan -- unless you attribute the channel's sudden demise to the likelihood of professional athletes winning defamation lawsuits over recent allegations of PED use -- was that Al Jazeera was too infatuated with its own brand. What we know now as Al Jazeera America was once Current TV, the alternative news and documentary channel created by Al Gore. Since Current had been a ratings failure, it was understandable that Al Jazeera didn't want to stick with the original name. But the Qatari network obviously assumed that U.S. news junkies would be impressed by the reputation the original Arabic Al Jazeera -- the name only means "the peninsula" -- had earned for objective and often critical coverage of Middle East politics. The emir of Qatar envisioned a BBC-like operation with considerable independence, though criticism of his majesty is forbidden, and that freed Al Jazeera to go after Arab politicians in an unprecedented way, given the channel's unprecedented reach. So the thinking in America obviously was that people would identify the Al Jazeera brand with "objective world news reporting." Instead, Americans heard the name and assumed that Al Jazeera America was simply an Arab or Muslim propaganda channel. In my area, the big cable carrier wouldn't pick the channel up at first for that very reason. Time Warner finally added it only after dumping RT, the Russian English-language news channel, which was more blatantly anti-American than Al Jazeera ever was. Few other cable providers ever added it, even though at any given moment Al Jazeera America looks "more like America" than BBC News does. It would be simplistic to blame the channel's failure on American prejudice, but from a business standpoint Al Jazeera was simply stupid not to anticipate prejudice and create a new brand for its American operation. RT doesn't call itself Novosti Amerikanski or anything that marks it as foreign, and while that hasn't helped the Russian channel much Al Jazeera America may well have had much more success. Meanwhile, we still get an English language news channel from the People's Republic of China, but that channel is so boring that nobody takes offense or gives a damn. It wouldn't be missed, but for some, Al Jazeera America will be, but it only has itself to blame.

12 comments:

hobbyfan said...

When exactly did Time Warner Cable ditch RTN, Sammy? Not that I'd care, but I haven't kept track of a lot of cable-related things lately.

Al Jazeera America's demise was inevitable, I would suppose, but it would be worse. They could've sold the channel to Dumb Donald Trump. Then, and only then, would it truly be considered a propaganda channel----as well as a vanity channel for Dumb Donald.

Samuel Wilson said...

It was just a couple of years ago, just as tensions over Ukraine were starting to build, so it's hard not to see it as a political rather than business decision. BTW, I misremembered the channel's name and I've now corrected it in the original post to simply RT rather than RTN.

Anonymous said...

I've not watched al Jazeera, but from videos and posts I've seen on youtube, it could also be, in part, because of their staunch refusal (so I've read) to denounce jihadists and their violence, so posters who claim to have once tuned in to the channel now refuse to do so. I'm not really sure how much of an impact that may have had. I'm quite surprised it managed to last this long.

Samuel Wilson said...

2:27 - Depends on what jihadis we're talking about, since they have nothing good to say, at least on the American channel, about ISIS or al-Qaeda. Perhaps the critics you cite are thinking of Israel and Palestine, as one thing Al Jazeera definitely isn't is Zionist, as you could easily guess.

Anonymous said...

But my understanding is that they don't denounce the violence preached in the koran. Of course, not even the "peaceful" muslims would dare denounce anything in the koran.

Samuel Wilson said...

If you're going to judge a cable news channel by whether they run exposes of Islam, I'm not sure that even Fox will satisfy you. The most you may get is Ayaan Hirsi Ali showing up on a talk show when she has a book to promote.

Anonymous said...

Actually, I recently watched a debate with Ayaan as one of the members and she wasn't promoting a book. The question up for debate was: "Is islam a religion of peace." I wasn't familiar with any of the debaters - one was an American female muslim from an obviously affluent family. One was a Pakistani who was at one point a jihadist and "reformed" while in prison. On the other side was Ayaan and some thin British guy who is an author.

What I found interesting was the remark by the muslim gentleman when asked the question:
"Why aren't moderate/peaceful muslims protesting against the violent muslims?" His answer actually shot his own argument in the foot. It was because moderate muslims fear for their lives when openly denouncing terrorism. The whole "who speaks for islam" is a wasted question. Anyone who is muslim is free to claim they speak for islam, since there is no "pope" of islam.

What I also found interesting is that when asked if they would denounce the sections of the koran that advocate violence, lying, keeping women as second class citizens, etc. neither of the muslims would answer that question. When asked about the child bride of mohammed, both would only answer that you cannot judge mohammed, but even if you were speaking of a different person, you could only judge them by the culture they were living in, not by modern standards. Although both answered that, of course, they would not want some 57 year old man marrying/having sex with their young daughter, if they had daughters.

Anonymous said...

Here's a link to that debate, in case you get bored and have just under 2 hours to waste.

For: Zeba Khan
For: Maajid Nawaz

Against: Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Against: Douglas Murray

Samuel Wilson said...

Just to show what strange bedfellows you may be dealing with, the one Douglas Murray with a Wikipedia entry is the author of a book called Neoconservatism: Why We Need It. But I note you don't really make much of his role in the debate. I may just check that out if my extra blogging duties etc. allow me those two hours, or else a fragment may do. Thanks.

Anonymous said...

My understanding is that Ayaan was muslim in Somalia, probably the worst place for a muslim girl to grow up. So she is quite familiar with the violent, extremist aspect - those who support it, those who are most often victimized, those who sit there and do nothing out of fear or because they agree with it, but don't want to get their hands dirty. Or, I suppose those who sit there and do nothing because they have something to gain from the extremists, and nothing to gain by helping the victims. Zeba, as she admits, is only there because she is a muslim woman who was born and raised in the United States in what she describes as a "middle-class family" in Toledo, Ohio. No, it wasn't Klinger in drag.

Given that the majority of 1.5-6 billion muslims are more likely to come from Ayaan's background than from Zeba's background, I'd have to give more credence to what she says, since the reality is that the majority of ignorant, uneducated muslims are more likely to be subjected to militant islam than to moderate islam. Especially if they see very few other muslims personally oppose the militant and quite a few supporting them and getting a "better deal", if you will.

Samuel Wilson said...

Ayaan Hirsi Ali gets a bad rap in the progressive media not because anyone disputes her experiences but because they see her as giving aid and comfort to the neocons or "imperialists" who are seen as more interested in ruling Muslims than reforming them. This becomes literal in the case of her husband, the Brit neocon Niall Ferguson, a longtime apologist for British imperialism. The "anti-imperialist left" really goes too far in their knee-jerk response to indigenous critics like her. Leaving religion out of it, these people often sound as if no form of indigenous despotism could be worse than rule or mere domination by the west. It was different when the USSR still existed. Alexander Cockburn was a bitter critic of people like Christopher Hitchens, again because hostility to Islam or even secular Arab tyranny like Saddam's was seen as alliance with imperialism, but back when the Soviets were occupying Afghanistan Cockburn wrote that if any country on earth deserved "rape," it was that one. The problem with the international left may be that they can't see the bourgeois U.S. as a force for "progress" and so deny Americans the right to judge anyone else.

Anonymous said...

The debate was hosted by "Intelligence Squared". I've watched a couple other debates hosted by them and suspect the group is biased toward the right. For example, one of the debates was regarding whether drugs should be legalized. Of the "pro" team, one was a black former prosecutor who's entire reasoning seemed to revolve around the black community and the damage done by arresting young black men on drug charges, the other proponent was a libertarian who, when asked what he saw as the biggest problem with drug use was, replied "Sometimes you run out."