Conducted by Geng Ngarmboonanant
Al-Jazeera has been at the forefront of reporting on the Arab Spring, and is widely credited for its in-depth, unbiased and often courageous journalism. In fact, Al-Jazeera itself has been cited as one of the factors behind the rapid change in the Middle East. Amjad Atallah is the current bureau chief of the Americas for Al-Jazeera English. Atallah worked as an editor of the Middle East Channel for Foreign Policy and as a co-director of the Middle East Task Force at the New America Foundation. He spoke with The Politic about the role of Al-Jazeera in the uprising, its reporting philosophy, and the controversies surrounding some of its work.
The Politic: You’ve worked at Foreign Policy and the New America Foundation. Why did you make the decision earlier this year to move, and how has work at Al Jazeera been different from work at Foreign Policy and New America?
AA: My job at Al Jazeera is very different from my work at Foreign Policy and the New America Foundation. I loved my time at New America- it was a fantastic place to work, full of remarkable and creative people doing amazing things, across an entire spectrum of issues. But when I was recruited to apply to Al Jazeera, I could not say no. Al Jazeera contributes to journalism worldwide and provides a voice to people who’ve never had a voice on the international stage. Their cause was one that I was profoundly attached to, and it was a profoundly different task than ones I had at the think tanks. The journalists and staff at Al Jazeera are remarkably dedicated and committed to make the world a better place through objective journalism. I am honored to be working with them.
The Politic: I understand that Al Jazeera is planning to expand its viewership in the United States. How does Al Jazeera coverage differ from the coverage of other American media companies?
AA: I think that Al Jazeera offers an unparalleled breadth and scope to the news that most other news channels cannot offer. We have more news coming out of Latin American and Mexico than any other news channel; for example, we have had reports coming out of Mexico every single day in the last week, and we reported on Bolivia yesterday and Brazil today. This level of coverage doesn’t exist at other channels. Secondly, we have a global context to our news. We only have one program across the world, so all our news is contextualized and geared towards a global audience. Other news networks may come across as more nationalistic or as catering to a local audience. This isn’t the case with Al Jazeera – we have audiences from the United States to London to Tokyo. In terms of stories originating from the United States, we present the American story to the entire world and the world’s stories to the United States.
The Politic: What do you think are the strengths and weaknesses of Al Jazeera’s coverage of the Arab Spring?
AA: Well, I would first like to say that the urge for democracy and freedom in the Arab World has existed since the start of colonialism. The struggle of people to be free has been with us forever, and it goes on everywhere. The difference with the Arab Spring is that this time, it was covered. We gave news coverage to a desperate man in Tunisia who lit himself on fire in protest of the government. This time, when people demonstrated, we were there to give a voice to their protests and complaints. This is our goal, at the end of the day – to give voice to the people who are in fact making news. We often get trapped into the notion that only the elite and celebrities make news, and as a result, we don’t give voice to normal people who are changing the world. Al Jazeera, I think, has established a precedent of covering regular people who are fighting for freedom and who have compelling stories – and presenting their journeys to a global audience.
Governments are responding to this by blocking our satellite signals and raiding our offices, so that’s been a very big challenge for us. But we’ve seen a rise in citizen journalism. Everyone with a cell phone nowadays becomes a journalist, with the ability to post their photos, videos and comments on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. We’ve begun relying heavily on citizen journalism in areas where our journalists can’t reach, and presenting it to the world. This is really transforming journalism.
The Politic: Al Jazeera gained much recognition for coverage of the Arab Spring, especially the Egyptian revolution. What was and is Al Jazeera’s attitude or philosophy in covering these revolutions? How does Al Jazeera choose what countries to cover?
AA: On any given day, a lot of stories come in. Many of these stories are news that every outlet covers. But we try to go beyond that. We’ve covered Bahrain, for example, since the beginning of its protests, even though it is not reported on as much in other outlets. For us, Bahrain is just as important as Syria, Egypt or Libya. We’ve covered student protests in Chile and Bolivia, and the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations in New York. Our goal is to never exclude any news. Since we’re a 24/7 news channel, we are able to put all these stories out to our global audience. We give everyone our attention. How much attention? That always depends on what information our reporter can get from that region. But our goal is always to cover as widely as possible.
The Politic: What role, if any, do you think Al Jazeera has had in pushing the Arab Spring along?
AA: We have not pushed revolutions; we’ve followed them. We’re encouraging all Arab media outlets to do the same – to cover the stories and present them to the larger audience. Is our coverage what motivates people to fight? No, absolutely not. They were fighting a hundred years ago, fifty years ago, twenty years ago. They’re more successful right now because we are giving them a voice on the global stage and conveying their stories to the world. It’s a more level playing field right now.
The Politic: Some claim that Al Jazeera is too pro-activist and that it is actively pushing for regime change. Do you think this is a correct charge, and if so, are you concerned?
AA: We’ve heard this claim a lot from the despotic governments in these Arab countries, who are accustomed to owning all the media outlets and cracking down on the free press. They’ve been used to having free reign in what to cover. What Al Jazeera is doing is not activism. We’re not supporting this group or that group; we’re simply reporting on all of them. This is journalism. We’ve been accused a lot by Arab governments as taking the side of the people against the government. The truth is, we report on the government’s perspective on issues as well. However, our baseline is always international law and human rights. So when the government is spraying bullets into a crowd of unarmed demonstrators – yes, we’ll still ask the government why they did it. But they shouldn’t be surprised if we don’t devote equal time to covering their propaganda as the grievances of the people.
The Politic: Has Al Jazeera itself changed, in any way, over the course of the past nine months since the start of the Arab Spring? Has the way you cover or decide on content changed at all?
AA: No, I don’t think so. We still strive for editorial independence like we always have; we still try to cover every important story everywhere. That’s our overriding concern. When a moment reaches a climax, like the two weeks of demonstrations in Egypt’s Tahrir Square in late January and early February, we went to live coverage almost full time. When a moment reaches a climax, we will always break in and that story will be our priority for that time period. However, one thing we won’t do is turn the camera away when that climax passes.
I heard Anderson Cooper say to CNN viewers once that there were complaints that the network was covering Libya too much. But he said, in response, that he was not going to yield to these complaints because the network has a responsibility, as a group of journalists, to cover it. We embody that philosophy at Al Jazeera—we keep covering stories as long as we can. We don’t stop covering climate change and more amorphous topics because they are difficult to cover and we are afraid that people will become bored with them. Our viewers are not bored by the coverage; many times it is the editors themselves who become bored with these topics. The people impacted by these events are not bored. We pledge to keep the light on as long as we can.
The Politic: Recently, Wikileaks published reports about negotiations between Al Jazeera and the Qatari and U.S. governments, and how Al Jazeera yielded to the wishes of these governments. Now that Al Jazeera’s director general has been replaced by a member of the Qatari royal family, there have been charges that its coverage is not truly independent, but rather a reflection of the views of the Qatari royal circle. In your experience, have you ever changed coverage because of pressure from the United States?
AA: No. Absolutely not. I’ve been here about half a year and we’ve never yielded to pressure from the United States. I’ve also quizzed and questioned my colleagues who have been working for years at Al Jazeera and they have confirmed that they have never changed coverage because of pressure from governments. Let me reiterate that: we’ve never changed our coverage because of pressure from any foreign or domestic government.
Of course, we receive a lot of complaints from a lot of governments about what we report. Egyptian government officials, for example, complained during our reporting of the revolution. When a complaint reaches us, our principle is that we will always meet with them. If the complaint is that our reporting is inaccurate, we will look into it and fix it if necessary. We will also apologize in some cases. However, if it’s a political complaint, we’ll listen to them but not do anything about it. We understand that the responsibility of government officials is to “spin” the news to change the coverage of events, but it is also our responsibility to not yield to that.
The Politic: How, then, do you explain the recent Wikileaks reports that there were negotiations between Al Jazeera and the Qatari and U.S. governments?
AA: It is clear that our director-general did not yield to political pressure from these governments. In that case, our director-general met with the government officials and realized that a reporting mistake was made on our side. Specifically, there were pictures associated with a story that was not supposed to be associated with it. It was a mistake, and so we took it down.
The Politic: Do you think there are times when coverage should be changed if it may insight riots or disorders?
AA: There’s a difference between reporting on issues and providing a platform for hate speech. But my principle is this: if we start second-guessing ourselves on the consequences of publishing news stories, we begin to self-censor ourselves. For example, if we report on a government massacre, as far as the government is concerned, our coverage might instigate riots and disorders. It is, of course, not appropriate for us to tell our viewers to riot; however, it is our responsibility to report on the massacre. The consequences that follow the publication of news stories are unpredictable and too complex, and it is not our responsibility to predict them.
Geng Ngarmboonanant is a freshman in Silliman College.