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This is Al-Jazeera: News in the middle east

By Ed Pisacreta

Tareq Ayyoub a Jordanian-born correspondent for the Qatar-based al-Jazeera, was one of three media staff who died Tuesday, April 8th. The deaths brought the number of journalists and media staff who have died since the outbreak of the Iraq war to 11. In Ayyoub's native Jordan, the 500-strong Jordan Press Association of which Ayyoub was a member, described his killing as “a black day in the history of journalism” and sent a strongly worded memo to the U.S. and British embassies.

Reuters News Agency cameraman Taras Protsyuk, 35, a Ukrainian national based in Warsaw, and Spanish cameraman of the Spanish network Telecinco, Jose Couso, 37, died when a U.S. tank shell struck the Palestine Hotel, where foreign journalists are staying.
U.S. Central Command in Doha released a statement later Tuesday saying the tanks had been responding to enemy fire coming from the hotel, a claim strongly denied by journalists at the scene who claim videotapes of the incident prove there was no enemy fire from the hotel.

Reuters Editor-in-Chief Geert Linnebank said: “Clearly the war, and all its confusion, has come to the heart of Baghdad, but the incident nonetheless raises questions about the judgment of the advancing U.S. troops who have known all along that this hotel is the main base for almost all foreign journalists in Baghdad.”

Al-Jazeera was more blunt, stating on its Internet site that, rather than being an “unintentional mistake,” these attacks were designed to strike fear into journalists and pressure them to leave Iraq. U.S. forces could get on with the job of destroying Baghdad unobserved, said al-Jazeera.

Abu Dhabi Television from the United Arab Emirates said it believed its Baghdad building was deliberately targeted by U.S. troops, but no one was injured in the attack.

“The roof of the channel's office had a logo and could not be missed,” said the editor-in-chief of Abu Dhabi Television, Ali Al Nwejy.

Al-Jazeera similarly insisted there was no justification for the attack on its offices, as the building was also clearly labeled. This latest incident came a day after an al-Jazeera vehicle marked “TV” was blown up near Baghdad airport by U.S. forces after ordering its passengers to get out.

Observers say Ayyoub's death is likely to worsen relations between Washington and al-Jazeera. However, al-Jazeera and Washington haven't had the chummiest relationship in the past.

In November 2001, U.S. warplanes bombed al-Jazeera's offices in Kabul as they battled to evict the collapsing Taliban regime and to “liberate” Afghanistan. Once again, the news organization claimed the U.S. strategically targeted them. However, the United States isn't the only country that has spoken, or acted against al-Jazeera.

Muslim nations have been criticizing the Qatari news organization as well. Saddam Hussein complained that the station was anti-Iraqi after it reported on the huge expenses for his lavish birthday party. In neighboring Kuwait, officials accused al- Jazeera of being pro-Saddam, while the ruler of tiny Bahrain banned the station for being pro-Israel. Saudi Arabia organized a devastating advertising boycott to protest unflattering coverage of the kingdom's tyrannical ruling family, and Yasser Arafat blasted the channel for allegedly favoring Hamas over the PLO.

All told, the Qatari government has received more than 400 official complaints from other Arab nations regarding stories broadcast on al-Jazeera. (Although both the station and the Website are independent of the government, Al Jazeera received $140 million in seed money from the Qatari Emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani.)

Such controversial reporting is almost unheard of in the Middle East, where both publishers and broadcasters carefully toe the official line of their sponsoring governments. “News” in this part of the world typically consists of dispatches handed down from the Information Ministry rather than debates bubbling up from the streets.

Small wonder, then, that al-Jazeera was an instant hit throughout the Middle East. By criticizing rulers, reporting multiple sides of a story, and seeking out spokesmen for differing viewpoints, it revolutionized the way Arabs thought about the news. With an estimated 35 million viewers, it is by far the most popular news source in the region.

Despite its ubiquitous presence in the Middle East, few Americans had ever heard of Al Jazeera until October 2001, when Osama bin Laden chose the channel to televise a chilling, 15-minute broadcast without interruption throughout the Arab world. He praised the attacks on the World Trade Center and called for the murder of more Americans.

To the Bush administration, al-Jazeera's unedited broadcasts made it a mouthpiece and an ally of al-Qaeda. Secretary of State Colin Powell lodged a formal complaint with the Qatari government. American broadcast networks refused to carry the bin Laden comments for fear they might contain coded instructions to sleeper cells in the United States. The New York Daily News called for military action against al-Jazeera, and just weeks later, Air Force planes flying over Afghanistan dropped two 500-pound bombs on the station's bureau in Kabul.

All this information leads us to one question: is the U.S. military trying to silence foreign reporters who might be reporting anti-American sentiments by either killing them or destroying their news organization? In war, the facts are always blurry and one would be hesitant to condemn the military and the U.S. government just on speculation. But one might also find it hard to argue with the father of the journalist killed by the U.S. missile that hit the Al-Jazeera office in Baghdad. “My son is a martyr who was killed as a result of America's so-called civilization in an attack on press freedom,” said Naeem Ayyoub. He added: “They are attacking journalists to hide the truth."

Ed Piscareta is a senior journalism major. Email him at joevile2@hotmail.com