In the control room. On the screens, anchorwoman Muntaha Al-Ramahi, bottom left; a report from Kabul; and at top right, Abdallah Abdallah stands by.

(page 1 | 2 | 3)

In September 2000, when the Al-Aqsa Intifada exploded, viewers across the Arab world were as glued to Al-Jazeera as Americans were to CNN during the 1991 Gulf War. Al-Jazeera's controversial interviews, its commitment to getting both sides of a story—even if sometimes one of those sides is anathema to its audience—and its coverage in Iraq and of the Intifada confirmed and strengthened the channel's reputation as the pan-Arab broadcaster.

And, as anchorwoman Muntaha Al-Ramahi, who joined Al-Jazeera from Jordan TV, points out, "during the Iraqi crisis in 1998 and Intifada, we were established as the number-one Arabic channel in the world. Now, with this crisis, because this crisis is global, Al-Jazeera is starting to be of importance everywhere in the world." If Desert Fox and the Intifada established Al-Jazeera regionally, this current crisis has established it as a global broadcaster. Which in many ways it already was: the channel, prior to Sept. 11, already reached Arabic-speaking audiences in the United States, Europe, Australia, and Asia, in addition to the Middle East; but now non-Arabic-speakers, via translation or second-hand coverage, follow what Al-Jazeera is reporting. The channel had already established 35 bureaus and offices around the world; many of them have become actively involved in crisis coverage—New York, Washington, Cairo, London, Moscow, Islamabad, Kabul and Kandahar—either in field reporting, live broadcasts, hosting talk shows, or recruiting officials and experts for on-air appearances. Al-Jazeera had long been praised by the West for breaking new ground in Middle East media and reporting what many Arab governments don't want it to report. Now its exclusives—and the criticism it has drawn—are on a global scale.

In fact, Al-Jazeera has had a vision of itself as a global broadcaster since its beginnings—and the great irony of the U.S. displeasure with the way Al-Jazeera reports the news is that since its inception the channel has viewed itself as a global broadcaster deeply rooted in the Western tradition of broadcast journalism. Al-Jazeera was by coincidence—or golden opportunity—set up about the same time that the Orbit-funded BBC Arabic TV service was closed down, and Al-Jazeera brought around seventeen ex-BBC staff to Doha to help build the channel.

"We built Al-Jazeera up on the Western experience we had," says Helal, of his own move from London to Qatar. "From day one most of our editorial staff were from this BBC environment—assignment editors, interview producers, newsgathering editors, even picture editors. We got tremendous experience, of course, working here at Al-Jazeera and adapting a new style, but even after five years if we're in doubt in a certain situation, we convene and ask ourselves, if we were in London now what would we do?"

"I'm really amazed that these criticisms have come up," says Omar Bec, who was recruited from the BBC to head Al-Jazeera's newsgathering desk. "If they watch us closely they'll know that anything President Bush says, or if there's a Pentagon or State Department briefing, we go live on it. We interviewed Tony Blair in London, which we provided to Sky and BBC. The other day I was interviewed by French TV, which asked about the accusations that we're a mouthpiece for the Taliban. I asked them, if you were on the ground and you had this tape, would you air it or not? Of course we would, they said."

The channel that has been accused of being anti-American has more than once been accused of not being "Arab" enough, having received hundreds of official complaints from Arab governments, being temporarily shut down in more than one Arab country for causing offense, and drawing fire for their interviews with Israeli leaders. But channel officials say that they're filling a niche in coverage, both because they broadcast in Arabic and because they pay particular attention to what's important in the Arab world. According to Mohammed Jasim Al-Ali, "the difference between CNN International and Al-Jazeera is that CNN looks first to international news, then maybe to Asian, Middle Eastern specific issues. We look first to Arab and Islamic issues in detail, and after that to international questions."

"Al-Jazeera has often been called 'the CNN of the Middle East,'" Octavia Nasr points out. "When you do news 24 hours and there's a story as big as this story now or as the Gulf War, people turn to you. This is why CNN and Al-Jazeera are natural partners. We both do news 24 hours. We have talk shows, news shows, we're very similar in our operation."

Producer Dima Khatib, whose pre-Al-Jazeera experience includes regional and international newspapers and radio, says, "Our work doesn't stop in the newsroom or in Qatar or even in the Arab world. We have a lot of responsibility on our shoulders, knowing the bulletin may be watched by tens of millions of people around the world, that channels might be spotting us for news or pictures."

This means decisions about what gets covered, and how, are vital. Interview producer Ahmed Al-Shouly, who came to Al-Jazeera from BBC Arabic TV and worked before that with Reuters, says in a situation of such worldwide importance the channel "reviews everything once, twice, three times, we talk about what we should do, talk about what guests to invite for discussion." Virtually all of the channel's talk shows since Sept. 11 and as of late October have been devoted to some aspect of the attacks or their aftermath, from one angle or another. A new weekly program, "First War of the Century," has been added to the lineup, hosted alternately from Doha or Washington or other bureaus.

Says Al-Ali, "We want those who are supporting the Americans 100 percent, and Arab or Islamic experts who don't want to support the US all the way. It's a debate." On the Oct. 19 episode of "More Than One Opinion, " the panel was composed of Ahmed Shah Ahmadzi, former deputy prime minister in now-shadowy government of Burhanuddin Rabbani, and Bashir Nafi', lecturer in Islamic history, both in London; in Washington, Georgetown University professor of international relations and Middle East expert Michael Hudson; and in Doha, Enayatallah Khalil, the Rabbani government's ambassador to Khartoum. Ten days earlier, the show "Opposite Direction" put former Taliban information minister Mohammed Yassir against Northern Alliance charge d'affaires in Kuwait Nasir Ahmed Noor. On Sept. 21 "More Than One Opinion" brought together former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs David Mack, Kuwaiti journalist Ali Jabir Al-Sabah, Univ. of Alexandria Professor of Political Science Zakariya Hussein, and Islamic cleric Omar Mahmood.

"Before the American attack," says Ibrahim Helal, "we had Rabbani live by phone several times, during the news bulletin, and he was also on the "First War of the Century" program. We had Northern Alliance Foreign Minister Dr. Abdallah Abdallah three times by phone, and had Abdel Rashid Dostam on the phone on the same day it was rumored all over the world that he was killed. A year ago we sent Mohammed Safi—who before coming to Al-Jazeera was a correspondent for Abu Dhabi TV in Pakistan, and had good connections with the Northern Alliance—into Northern Afghanistan. He got exclusive interviews with everybody—including more than half an hour with Masood, which was unprecedented for an Arab journalist."

But Al-Jazeera was still in search of a live presence in Northern Afghanistan. On the afternoon of Oct. 14, Octavia Nasr gets word from CNN crews in the north that Dr. Abdallah Abdallah may be available that evening for an interview. She begins coordinating between staff in Doha and staff in Atlanta, arranging satellite bookings, and planning the timings of interviews for both CNN and Al-Jazeera.

By 6 o'clock the interview has been confirmed, and Dr. Abdallah is standing by, just in time for the evening newscast. 6:30 pm, Sunday Oct. 14, at Al-Jazeera's Doha headquarters, the evening news bulletin begins. Ibrahim Hilal and Dima Khatib are in the control room. Octavia Nasr is just outside with two telephones in her hand, one to Atlanta and the other to a crew on the ground in Jebel Siraj, part of Northern-Alliance-controlled Afghanistan. Muntaha Al-Ramahi is on air in the studio. The show begins with a report from Tayseer Allouni in Kabul. At 6:35, via Al-Jazeera's Doha-based translator, Al-Ramahi begins a live interview with Dr. Abdallah. The graphic at the top right of the screen reads, in Arabic, "Al-Jazeera Exclusive"; at the top left, the same thing in English.

Abdallah tells Al-Jazeera viewers that although the US campaigns began only recently, the Northern Alliance has been fighting the Taliban for years. "What is needed is for the Taliban to give up their agenda for supporting terrorism, for the sake of the people of Afghanistan, because the people are suffering under the Taliban and terrorist organizations. There are thousands of foreign terrorists present in Afghanistan who have been fighting against our people and have terrorized the whole nation." At 6:43, Al-Ramahi thanks Dr. Abdallah and the eight-minute interview has ended. At 7:20 pm, using the same ground crew and same equipment, Dr. Abdallah Abdallah is interviewed live by CNN's Wolf Blitzer, forty-five minutes after the start of the Al-Jazeera interview.

"You can see everybody giving high fives right now," says Octavia Nasr. "This is really what Al-Jazeera needs right now—Northern Afghanistan. And we did it in a big way, because it's not just a correspondent giving a report, it's Abdallah Abdallah, live on Al-Jazeera, being interviewed from Doha, coordinated through CNN. It's a perfect example of what these two organizations can do together. Part of the beauty of the deal is that no one watching Al-Jazeera right now knows how it happened."

The cooperation that continues over the coming days and weeks is sometimes more obvious—CNN viewers are by now well familiar with "Al-Jazeera Exclusive" logos popping up on their screens, in Arabic and English. At a dinner in Amman, Jordan, conversation turns to marveling at the sight earlier that day of CNN correspondent Matthew Chance in Northern Afghanistan, talking via simultaneous translation with the Al-Jazeera anchor.

But sometimes, as Nasr says, the mutually beneficial arrangements between two major global broadcasters go virtually unnoticed. The day we left Doha, the TBS staff picked up a copy of the Oct. 14 Sunday Telegraph and found, as in many other newspapers these days, a lengthy article on Al-Jazeera, headlined "Pressure mounts on TV station over bin Laden." There's no mention of CNN in the article. But in the accompanying photograph of the Doha newsroom, bustling with computers and TV screens and several dozen Al-Jazeera staff members, a woman sits working at her desk. Had we not just been in that room we would never have recognized, as most Telegraph readers surely didn't, Octavia Nasr. TBS

continued:

The Courting of Al-Jazeera

by Sarah Sullivan