marginalised and that no one could dare to host” (1) . These individuals and groups had no other opportunity to express their opinions and ideas in official Arab media or communicate with their surroundings, because their presence was restricted socially, politically, culturally and even economically. Thus, “Al Jazeera laid the foundations of a multi-opinion media at a time that “a unilateral vision” (2) and the exclusion of any opinion that may conflict with the official policy of the ruling govern- ments prevailed. This means bypassing the approach that limits balance to only two options and leaves no room for any alternatives. The prin- ciple of balance has gained importance in Al Jazeera’s coverage, espe- cially after it broadcast the videotapes of Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda, and was the only channel to do so. This conflicted with the unilateral narrative that certain international media organisations adopt as a policy, which requires blocking the views of organisations they describe as “terrorist”. According to Krichen, Al Jazeera provoked great controversy and criticism by a number of channels and politicians who blamed the channel for giving way to terrorists when it was merely covering the war in Afghanistan from more than one perspective. The channel would broadcast the speeches of US officials (George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, and others) as well as excerpts from Bin Laden’s speeches, when it had a scoop and according to their news value. Al- though Bin Laden’s tapes and opinions were broadcast on other media outlets, Al Jazeera contextualised, analysed and discussed his discourse and presented different opinions about it, enabling the viewer to receive this news content without propaganda or counter-propaganda. In this sense, as Krichen says, “If it were not for Al Jazeera, we would not have known Osama Bin Laden, his mind-set, what he wants and what he does not want” (3) . Balance is meaningless in the standards for evaluating the perfor- mance of the media outlet in the news field without objectivity; and that requires separating opinions and feelings from the truth, and achieving integrity and impartiality. In addition, the news should not be broad-
(1) Tayseer Allouni, phone interview, Ibid.
(2) Khadija Bengana, phone interview, 14 September 2020.
(3) Mohamed Krichen, phone interview, Ibid.
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