Al Jazeera: Bloody Reporting
Eric Calderwood wrote quite an interesting column for the Boston Globe about Al Jazeera’s coverage of the war in Gaza. As someone who watches the Kuwait-based news channel as well, I found his take on their reporting quite fascinating.
First, Calderwood freely admits that Al Jazeera is highly biased. Its coverage of the war is clearly sympathetic towards Palestinians. All suffering of Israelis is ignored. If one watches Al Jazeera one gets the impression that Israel had no other reason to attack Gaza than imperialism. Hamas’ rocket attacks against Israel are seldom mentioned. Nor does the network explain that Hamas broke the ceasefire before Israel attacked.
But, Calderwood says, Al Jazeera adds significantly to the coverage of the war nonetheless. Unlike most other networks and newspapes, this channel shows what war truly means; blood, destruction, death. Westerners are detached from war because we only see bombs exploding from far away, and hear the sounds of guns being fired, without seeing what this does to the people living in the area. Al Jazeera brings the war into our living rooms. It shows us just how terrible war is, and it reminds us that war should be a last resort. Whether one blames Hamas or Israel for the violence is irrelevant; Palestinians, normal civilians, are suffering either way.
Although I am also quite critical of Al Jazeera and often find myself switching it off because the coverage is too biased, I do share Calderwood’s take on the importance of reporting war as it is. Al Jazeera certainly adds something to the debate about this war, and about wards in general.
As Calderwood writes, the only thing we can hope for now is for Western news channels to bring us war as it is as well, but without the bias.
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Doubtful, on both. I can only speak for the U.S., but I’m fairly certain that showing bloodied up American soldiers is not allowed. Maybe I’m wrong, but I’ve never seen it. The only way you could possibly do this would to be have reporters attached to units, but it’s been a while since this has happened. And I don’t think they ever got close enough to show any real war from the American side.
And if you are attached to a unit, who is keeping your life safe, are you really going to be objective in your reporting?
I’d be very pleased to see more international news coverage making its way into our living rooms. Even the most well-intentioned journalist makes decisions about what to include, that can be questioned. The only solution to the myopia that can emerge is surely to make people question the facts from other cultural perspectives.
But there’s a potential disaster here as well, now we can choose from a vast selection what perspective we would like. We’re seeing the increasing branding of news coverage – look at the polarization of the american news media with figures such as Olbermann and O’ Reilly who care not a jot for the truth. There’s a huge danger of an atomised society emerging where the liberal has his TV show and the Republicans have theirs, and the scientist and preacher no longer have to cross paths.
Damn. We’re already there.
Hamas didn’t break the ceasefire, Israel did on Nov 4 (election day in the US). Also, Israel never honored it’s side of the ceasefire by not lifting the blockade.
Al-Jazeera is based in Qatar (not Kuwait) and is funded by the Emir of Qatar.
Folks, that fine old cynical statement from news rooms of yore is: “IF IT BLEEDS, IT LEADS.” This has worked well to bring readers or viewers. Some governments are much more careful about trying to avoid splashing too much graphic coverage of their soldiers being killed, but a lot of the media really do look for all the gore they think they can get away with. A good traffic accident or murder always sells more copies of a paper than a brief description.
The point of accuracy is important. Reporting, just the facts, x number of people were killed in combat in location y is better than the emotional language or the footage, but every party is trying to tug heart strings.
I wouldn’t really say that Aljazeera is particularly biased. If it is, the bias is one of being anti-establishment. In other words, it affords more weight to the voice of the little ordinary person whose opinion almost never gets heard on the mainstream news channels, than it does to the government spokesman. This bias -if you want to call it that- is across the board, and is certainly not confined to the Israeli / Palestinian conflict.
Consequently, Aljazeera’s coverage of the war on Gaza was always going to put more emphasis on the plight of the ordinary Palestinian civilians caught in the firing line than it was on soundbites from be-suited Israeli or Hamas spokespeople.
And the reason that Aljazeera is so popular among people in the so called ‘developing’ world is precisely that. It’s the only news channel that gives them a voice of their own, and doesn’t report them through the distorting prism of either their rulers, or Western attitudes and prejudices.