Al Jazeera Tells its Story: In-Depth Studies

concepts that have invaded newsrooms and broadcasts, such as spe- cific uses of globalisation and security and terms like “revolutionary”, “populism”, “revival”, “governance”, “velayat e-faqih”, “political ex- clusion”, “infrastructure” and “elitism”. One other function of this dic- tionary has been to Arabicise terms such as “profile”, “background”, “graphic”, “features”, “walk and talk” and “first person” among others. Aesthetic Challenges The aesthetic aspect of linguistics is a divisive issue in media since its inception. Journalists often complain about professional limitations that chain their writing utensils and tighten their use of eloquent lan- guage. They say in the long term, this stagnates journalism and foss- ilises their progression. As Mustafa Sadiq al-Rafi’i says, “The closer a journalist is to the craft and its right over the public, the further the journalist is from its art, beauty and right over the journalist themselves. This is clear with very little pondering; in fact, it does not need any pondering at all” (1) . Ibn Khaldoun supports this viewpoint when he offers his opinion on the difficulty of a craft, and how engaging in mental gymnastics overtakes the creation of literature. However, there are others, who be- lieve that insisting on beautifying the linguistic style weakens accuracy and objectivity, and that aesthetics, in their very essence, defy the truth. According to Abbas Mahmoud al-Aqqad, the majority of those who hold this viewpoint do not understand the definition of aesthetics or truth, because he believes that a writer who “sacrifices truth for the sake of false glamour does not really know the beauty of truth” (2) . After a quarter of a century of professional media work by Al Ja- zeera, there is still some struggle among its journalists, in terms of lan- guage, to shed “metaphorical tropes and clichés, without abandoning (1) Mustafa Sadiq al-Rafi’i, The Revelation of the Pen , (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-Ilmiyah), Volume III, p. 163. (2) Abbas Mahmoud al-Aqqad, Entire Collection , (Beirut: Dar al-Kitab al-Libnani, 1984), Volume VI, p. 70.

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