for Al Jazeera’s performance? How did Al Jazeera succeed to become an outstanding and influential international media organisation? What kind of professional tools and standards did Al Jazeera uphold to re- alise its success and sustain such a leading position? The data used in this chapter was gathered from different sources. In addition to inter- views with Al Jazeera reporters and relevant staff members, the author used materials collected through a questionnaire distributed to dozens of Network employees by the team who supervised the process of docu- menting Al Jazeera’s history. More than 80 journalists working for both the Arabic and English channels responded to the questionnaire. As was mentioned above, the available literature, however, was of little help on this specific topic. 1. Al Jazeera in the World of Satellite TV The satellite technology used during the “Kuwait liberation” war (18 January-28 February 1991) changed TV coverage of wars radically. It also changed the way TV influences people’s perceptions of events. From that perspective, TV reporting gained prominence over audio and print media because for the first time ever, cameras captured, filmed and aired live an armed conflict, as it was unfolding. This unprecedent- ed form of news coverage also gave television an upper hand over ra- dio, which, until then, had been the fastest and most reliable source for news information. But with the arrival of live TV coverage it became possible to receive the news and information even faster. Likewise, the print-based media that had been looked at as the “most used cultural tool and the best mode of discourse” (1) to affect the audience, lost ground to the satellite transmitted images and the latter, as such, enabled TV networks to outperform their print and radio rivals, armed with the clear and subtle messages a visual image can convey. And that was the case when CNN brought the conflict in Iraq to mil- lions around the world live – broadcasting images “humans have never seen before; where missiles and smart bombs with cameras bring the viewer into the heart of the devastation process”. (2)
(1) Abdullah Mahmoud Adawi, Aesthetics of Television Media (Beirut: Arab Centre for Re- search and Policy Studies, 2016), p. 61.
(2) Shaker Abdul Hameed, “The Age of Image”, Aalam Al-Maarifa ( The World of Knowledge )
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