Such prevailing professional capabilities and wide access came with a vision enshrined by Al Jazeera: to communicate the concerns of the Arab public, defend their values and needs, and always stand for human rights. This vision ensured Al Jazeera’s massive popularity among the Arab public at the expense of tense relations with most of the political leaders. Oddly, such tenseness also extended to governments of foreign democracies, because they found Al Jazeera’s coverage to be in defiance of their gov- ernments’ desires to control the Arab media space and mislead its audiences. This chapter reviews the challenges encountered by Al Jazeera since its inception and throughout the last 25 years as it sought to establish new media practices in an inhospitable Arab environment and an imbalanced Western-favoured media setting and its prevailing narratives. As early as its first days, Al Jazeera brought up unrelenting largescale controversies about its role, ob- jectivity, and unprecedented media model. As time passed, Al Ja- zeera’s influence grew wider and so did the challenges it faced. Some of them have turned into systemic stifling and silencing pol- icies through pressurizing Al Jazeera’s reporters and targeting its offices whether by shutting them down or bombing them. These practices have been committed by a number of Arab and West- ern countries, as well as lobbies and centres of powers in several countries. 2. Controversies surrounding Al Jazeera and its ‘Annoying’ Roles Al Jazeera has been clear about its media vision since its foundation, and has expressed its policies in writing on several occasions. However, the way others receive and interpret that vi- sion and view its overall coverage has been very interesting. The controversies around these issues have never ceased and they have taken various forms. Here’s a summary of some of the characteris- tics of the debate and arguments used on both sides:
gg.gg/mpqvz (accessed 15 November 2020)
262
EN2.indd 262
20/02/2022 4:14 PM
Made with FlippingBook Online newsletter