Hat Tip to Jefferson23
22.09.11
"Al Jazeera is a vital component to the USG's strategy in communicating with the Arab world." -- Joseph E. LeBaron, U.S. Ambassador to Qatar, November 6, 2008
"Al Jazeera Board Chairman Hamed bin Thamer Al Thani has proven open to creative uses of Al Jazeera's airwaves by the USG beyond straightforward interviews." -- Joseph E. LeBaron, U.S. Ambassador to Qatar, February 10, 2009
The U.S. Embassy in Doha, and officials from Washington, used a variety of direct and indirect methods of ensuring a greater degree of compliance on the part of Al Jazeera. These methods included placing speakers on Al Jazeera news programs; supplying information approved by the U.S. Government; providing U.S. training for Al Jazeera's journalists; demanding editorial distortion of aired programs; securing Al Jazeera's agreement to check first with U.S. officials before airing "sensitive" programs; monitoring of Al Jazeera in minute detail, ranging from its news coverage to its internal structure and policies; lodging complaints with Qatari government ministers; constant, personal visits to Al Jazeera's headquarters; developing familiarity and close personal contacts with Al Jazeera staff; and going over the head of the Managing Director of Al Jazeera to ensure that "objectionable content" was removed and never repeated.
Mainstreaming, professionalism, balance, and objectivity emerge as the chosen tropes for a journalism that favors U.S. foreign policy. U.S. officials did not overtly threaten Al Jazeera staff, nor did they engage in any crass form of bribery. The intervention was more polite, prolonged, and intimate. In the process of reading these cables we learn that, for the U.S. Government, Al Jazeera was valued as a strategic tool, as a credible proxy for U.S. "public diplomacy." We hear senior Al Jazeera executives describe themselves as "partners" and "assets" of the U.S. We also learn about the degree to which Al Jazeera is controlled by the Qatari state and used as a foreign policy instrument. We witness the degree to which Al Jazeera English is almost entirely a foreign import, not even pretending to speak as the "voice of the Arabs" and operating as a colonial transplant. The picture of Al Jazeera revealed through the cables is a grim one, and it is not likely that Al Jazeera can proceed unscathed.
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Likewise, we must note that the U.S. Embassy told Washington that it was ready to help exploit Al Jazeera's openness "through direct diplomacy with Qatar's ruling family and members of Al Jazeera's Doha headquarters." Elsewhere, Ambassador LeBaron insisted that,
to help improve the USG's image on the Arab street, we need to step up USG senior-level engagement of the Qatari leadership. Better relations with the ruling al-Thani family will translate into changes in al-Jazeera coverage that will gradually help improve the image of the United States in the Arab street.
While admitting that Al Jazeera has been great for Qatar's, and the Emir's, international public profile, Khanfar asserted that Al Jazeera did not see itself as part of any reform movement, nor was it the voice of the Arabs.
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http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2011/forte220911.html
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