Tearing Down The Walls-------Al-Jazeera

[rodeodance]

.......That changed everything, from the way Arabs understood themselves and the outside world, to the manner in which Arab governments related to their people. Al-Jazeera programs told the stories behind political assassinations, and showed viewers how Arabs lag in both economics and culture. "One program explained how the number of books published in Greece is 10 times more than the number published in all Arab countries," says Ahmed Sheikh, the Arabic channel's editor in chief. "We were saying, 'This is a reality. We have to catch up with the rest of the world.'" ..............

http://www.time.com/time/europe/magazine/article/0,13005,901061106-1551994,00.html?cnn=yes

From the Magazine
Tearing Down The Walls
Ten years after it began to change TV journalism in the Arab world, al-Jazeera, always controversial, is embarking on its most ambitious venture to date

By SCOTT MACLEOD / DOHA


* Photoessay: Inside al-Jazeera
* Arab Democracy: Signs Of Freedom
* TIME magazine: Prime Time for the "Arab CNN"


Sunday, Oct. 29, 2006
It was a typical al-Jazeera moment, one loaded with controversy. Two weeks ago, a story broke that a U.S. State Department official had told the Arabic-language TV channel that the U.S. had acted with arrogance and stupidity in the Iraq war. The State Department initially denied that the official, Alberto Fernandez, a spokesman for the Near Eastern Affairs bureau, had said any such thing. But a

review of the transcript soon proved otherwise. The broadcast was accurate. And al-Jazeera had made news again.

The channel — which celebrates 10 years on the air this week — has been doing that since it was founded. It has its faults. But al-Jazeera has served the truth far better than many of its detractors would acknowledge. Indeed, arguably nothing — including the Bush Administration's panoply of democratization programs — has done more than al-Jazeera to open minds and challenge authority in the Middle East. The channel's launch marked the beginning of a process of tearing down the psychological wall that made ordinary Arabs afraid to speak out, and which had rendered Arab dictators so invincible. It is loathed by autocrats in the Middle East, while the Bush Administration, too, has had its beefs with al-Jazeera, at times vigorously objecting to its coverage of the U.S.-led war on terror.

The channel's journalists have faced endless professional and personal hazards. But al-Jazeera has remained on the air, which, given the region's legacy of repression, is a remarkable achievement in itself. Later this month, a long-anticipated channel in English, al-Jazeera International (aji), should finally start broadcasting. So 10 years on, it's worth asking: How has al-Jazeera done what it has done? What can it do better? And what does its future hold?...........