Tearing Down The Walls

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aji is aiming to be just as revolutionary in English as its sister company has been in Arabic. "Al-Jazeera is the only international network that is based in the developing world, and that will be the departure point for the English channel," says Khanfar. "The 'south' has not been presented in the international media properly. Most of the international media organizations are centered in the West." Whether a highly wired planet needs another 24-hour satellite news channel will become clearer once aji's broadcasts begin streaming into living rooms around the world. But aji starts off with some advantages: it has a feisty crew of 500 mostly young journalists, and it has the deep pockets of the Emir.

Money alone will not guarantee success — and nor will headline programming such as a talk show to be hosted by Sir David Frost, one of TV journalism's most famous figures. Indeed, so muddied is al-Jazeera's reputation in the U.S. that when aji managing director Nigel Parsons first began trying to persuade U.S. cable and satellite operators to add the channel to their lineups, he recalls, "There were some who thought they wouldn't touch us with a barge pole in case they lost other business." At least initially, aji's main audience is likely to be in Europe, as well as among the growing numbers of viewers in Asian countries such as India where English is widely spoken. In such markets, aji, with its extensive news operation and slick programming, could give cnn and bbc World a run for their money.

To achieve its founders' goals, however, aji will have to solve a conundrum that has plagued it from the time the idea was first mooted: Can it aim to be a first-rate global channel in English while maintaining the crowd-pleasing partisanship that has become the Arabic channel's trademark? The channel pledges to cover more stories in the developing world — which would be welcome, so long as it does not become merely a platform for anti-Western propaganda.

Al-Jazeera executives stress that the two channels will remain separate, yet in the next breath say they will share crews, news footage and even on-air journalists on some occasions. According to aji news director Steve Clark, editors from both channels are trying to come up with a common mission statement and code of conduct, including an agreement concerning the use of words such as terrorist, suicide bomber and invader. While aji says it will strictly avoid "martyr" to describe casualties of conflict, the Arabic channel continues to use the term when describing Palestinians killed in clashes with Israeli forces.

Khanfar, who heads up both channels, says that though they may differ in the way they present stories, they will both represent "the al-Jazeera spirit-courage, rethinking authority, giving a voice to the voiceless." A Palestinian who spent 12 years studying and researching in Africa, Khanfar signed up as an al-Jazeera reporter in Johannesburg in 1997, before covering the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Khanfar insists that al-Jazeera's editorial line will not be tailored to suit political pressures.

When Karen Hughes, the U.S. State Department's Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs visited al-Jazeera's headquarters last year, Khanfar says, she complained that the channel misrepresented U.S. foreign policy and fired passions in the region. Khanfar says he held firm, standing on the channel's professionalism. "I don't know if we agreed on certain issues or not," Khanfar says. "I don't think we did." But he insists that the exchange was valuable, reflecting al-Jazeera's core belief in "the opinion and the other opinion." In the past, the Arabic channel may not have always lived up to that lofty principle. English-speaking news junkies, from the U.S. State Department to homes all over the world, will soon be able to judge for themselves whether al-Jazeera's latest and most ambitious venture can match the professed ideals of its founders.