NEW YORK—Al Jazeera English has seized its moment in the limelight by launching a campaign to win distribution for its English channel in the United States. The television network, owned by Qatar Media Corporation, has dominated news coverage during recent events in Egypt.
Al Jazeera is the only English-language news channel headquartered in the Middle East. Its sister network broadcasts in Arabic. Established by the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad, its broadcast coverage reaches 220 million households in over 100 countries, but most audiences in the United States can only access it online.
Major American media, with less local knowledge and financial resources, has had no choice but to quote Al Jazeera as a source on recent news in Egypt. The result is millions of Americans becoming more acquainted with the brand.
“They obviously have much more resources, contacts, sources, journalists, [and] knowledge of Egypt than American media outlets,” said Erik Nisbet, assistant professor of Communications at Ohio State University.
They are getting into the fray, grabbing images and filing firsthand reports—American media journalists wouldn’t risk their lives in the same way, explained Shawn Powers, an assistant professor at Georgia State University, who has written extensively about Al Jazeera, interviewing over 100 of their journalists for a project.
“That is the MO of journalism in the region,” Powers said.
Al Jazeera is a successful and respected media in the Arab world, but in the United States, it is often controversial.
Al Jazeera’s Moment
America’s close political relationship with now former President Hosni Mubarak means Americans have been watching events unfolding in the region with intense interest.
Al Jazeera reports viewership during the first week of the uprising totaled over 7 million, up 2,500 percent from before. More than 60 percent of that traffic originated in the United States, the network reported.
Every television network has a key moment when they become relevant to a new audience. Powers says it is possible that Egypt is Al Jazeera’s “American moment.”
The network has been trying for years to gain a wider audience reach in the United States. At the height of the war on terror, they were viewed with intense caution, with the former Bush administration publicly opposing the network.
Tony Burman, a former editor for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and now the head of North American Strategies for Al Jazeera English, told the Huffington Post on Jan. 31 that cable companies are objecting to Al Jazeera for political and commercial reasons. Under Obama, things are getting better, he said.
Al Jazeera is currently available in just three U.S. cities: Toledo, Ohio; Burlington, Vt.; and Washington, D.C.
Link TV, KCET (a noncommercial public broadcast media), Free Speech TV, and
NEC World View have offered extended Al Jazeera programming throughout the Egypt revolt, Sophia Qureshi, Communications and International Relations specialist with Al Jazeera’s broadcasting center based in Washington, D.C., said.
Demand Al Jazeera
Taking advantage of the opportunity presented to it, Al Jazeera launched a nationwide campaign, “Demand Al Jazeera,” on Feb. 3. A similar effort was used to secure broadcast rights in Canada recently.
The campaign began with a Twitter advertisement, which directed thousands of people to its web page, said Qureshi. The majority of the e-mails received, 18,000 in total, were from major cosmopolitan centers like Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and Washington, D.C.
Full-page ads touting comments made by journalists from mainstream media also appeared in major cities across the nation.
A national meet-up day on Feb. 10 attracted people in 438 communities to get involved. Participants were encouraged to call or write letters to their local broadcasters “demanding” Al Jazeera.
About two dozen people attended the largest meet-up on the Lower East Side of New York.
“I think it is silly that I don’t get this option,“ said Gabriel Meyers, a film writer and publicist. ”We should have all perspectives so intelligent people can base their opinions on that.”
Also at the meet-up, which attracted mainly non-Arabs, Sarah Froelich, a design critic and blogger, said we don’t have any good international news in the United States.
“The Muslim world is huge, and we know so little about it. Living in Queens (New York) it is important for me to know my neighbors,” she added.
Other supporters of Al Jazeera say the network’s coverage could help Americans understand how others think, know what people in other countries are concerned about, understand the role of the United States overseas, and make more informed decisions.
Nesbit admits that a lot of things get said on Al Jazeera that Americans find distasteful or out of bounds.
“Over the last few years, AJ seems to have gotten better in managing the extremity of views on its channel,” Nisbet said. “I have no concerns that Al Jazeera aided and abetted our enemy in Afghanistan or Iraq,” he added.
According to Qureshi, the network will keep up its campaign as long as it takes.
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