ABSTRACT

In December of 1875 two Lebanese immigrants founded the Al-Ahram newspaper in Alexandria, Egypt. Over the past 142 years of uninterrupted daily publications, Al-Ahram has grown to be not only one of the oldest media conglomerates but also a highly respected economic empire. I was one of the lucky few to join Al-Ahram in the late 1980s. Within a few years, I became the paper’s war correspondent, hobbling from one war zone to another across three continents. Early in 1996, a new television network came into existence. The name, Al-Jazeera, sounded a bit strange for a simple reason: we, in the Middle East, had not been used to seeing a robust and independent news network in general, and in the Gulf area in particular. However, to my astonishment, I watched Al-Jazeera crews in many conflict zones working as professionally as any renowned old Western network. More importantly, their final products seemed not only as good as other Western counterparts, but also more distinguished in terms of different perspectives. Over the years, I watched Al-Jazeera both as a viewer and also as a competing journalist. Being an independent journalist, I have always bonded myself to a strict professional code of ethics, which to a certain extent has been a rarity in the profession in the Middle East, even rarer more recently.

Feeling challenged by the newborn TV network, I had to double and even triple my efforts to beat the competition. Eventually, I battled only to catch up. However, keeping up with the competition is not an individual task, rather an institutional one, so the mission became next to impossible. Just like Al-Ahram in its hey-day, Al-Jazeera, over time, has become a groundbreaker, international agenda setter and a credible source of news worldwide, while we, as part of the once-pioneering Al-Ahram, regressed. I cannot say that a lack of finance was responsible for such regression in the case of Al-Ahram, as they had an excellent financial portfolio for decades. Rather, the rise of Al-Jazeera, and the sharp decline of Al-Ahram, was the result of how professional values were held. The former held up these values and the latter did not. These values are what make good media stand out, and other media wither out. It is good journalism that keeps media young and vigorous.

In the beginning of this chapter, while recollecting those days in the 1990s when I saw this new baby competitor initiate its war coverage, I make a quick comparison between it and Al-Ahram before I get into the main topic, which is the Al-Jazeera Effect: News Media Coverage of Global Humanitarian Emergencies.