AL JAZEERA vs CNN
Networks Show Different Views Of WarThe Wall Street Journal
Apr 5, 2003
Thursday, March 27: 6 a.m. EST / 2 p.m. in Baghdad. On CNN, American paratroopers jump from a plane to open the northern front in Iraq. On al-Jazeera, a little Iraqi girl in a pink sweater stares out from her Baghdad hospital bed.
It's the same conflict seen through two different lenses. CNN plays up technology and strategy and 3-D maps analyzed by retired generals. There are few civilians other than embedded reporters. On al-Jazeera, the biggest Arabic- language TV network, the conflict is bloody and chaotic. Soldiers fire from dusty trenches; injured children fill hospitals.
The two networks, with unprecedented access to Iraqi battlefields, play a powerful role in shaping perceptions of the war. The gulf between the two views even could have an effect on U.S. policy in the Middle East. A look at 24 consecutive hours of programming on CNN and al-Jazeera reveals the many differences, both dramatic and subtle.
CNN offers human-interest features with the families of U.S. POWs. Al-Jazeera keeps updating the war's death toll. CNN refers to ``coalition forces,'' al-Jazeera to ``invading Americans.'' Al-Jazeera has had unusual access in Iraq, so it has offered a street-level view of the war's impact on Iraqis. CNN's correspondents were all either pulled or kicked out of Baghdad.
Many Arabs and Americans believe the other audience is being fed propaganda. But there is more than ideology at work. Both networks are business operations competing for viewers and advertisers against increasingly aggressive rivals and avidly seeking to please their target audiences.
CNN, founded in 1980 and based in Atlanta, rose to prominence during the early hours of the Persian Gulf War in 1991 when it was the lone TV network with vivid shots from Baghdad. Although some critics have labeled the network as politically liberal, recently it has been seen in the United States as more centrist. That owes a lot to competition from its main rival, the overtly conservative Fox News, which has grown rapidly since starting in 1996.
Al-Jazeera, based in Doha, Qatar, also got started in 1996 under a decree from the emir of Qatar. He gave it seed money but has never exerted editorial influence, the network says. Al-Jazeera now relies on funding from advertising, from providing footage to other networks and from other ventures such as turning programs into books. It is battling for viewers with smaller new rivals al-Arabiya, based in Dubai, and Abu Dhabi Television, based in the United Arab Emirates.
Often called the Arab CNN, al- Jazeera regards itself as the first independent Arab TV station, the only one that is ever critical of Arab governments. It has changed the media landscape in the Arab world since the 1991 Persian Gulf War, when most Middle Eastern media were state-controlled and many regional viewers were skeptical of what they saw. Now the ``al-Jazeera effect'' resembles ``the CNN effect'' that came into sharp relief in 1991, when seeing images of the war on TV shaped public opinion.
CNN spokeswoman Christa Robinson says its reporting is unbiased. The network makes judgment calls, she says, ``particularly when it comes to soldiers killed in line of duty.'' On CNN, injuries are shown more often as still photographs, and when it does show video footage, viewers rarely see blood. ``It's a news judgment where we would of course be mindful of the sensibilities of our viewers,'' Robinson says.
Al-Jazeera thinks it shows a perspective different from American media but doesn't think it is biased either.
``We're here showing the real life of day-to-day things happening on the ground. The fact of the matter is war kills. It's not an image everyone wants to see,'' says Omar Beck, al-Jazeera's head of news gathering and operations.
The differences unfolded during 24 hours beginning at midnight in Baghdad March 27, one week after the war began. The day brought some big news: British forces encountered civilian fighters in Basra in southern Iraq, a Baghdad marketplace was bombed, and American troops parachuted into Northern Iraq.
About 5 p.m. EST Wednesday / 1 a.m. Thursday in Baghdad A bomb landed in a Baghdad marketplace. CNN's Nic Robertson describes ``chaos and anger'' in the district and shows footage from al-Jazeera of a burned-out car and men carrying the body in a blanket.
``The Iraqi government is saying this is an indication that coalition forces are targeting civilians,'' Robertson says and shows a clip of the Iraqi minister of information saying, ``They are killing innocent people.'' Robertson's report also includes a clip of Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks, deputy director of the U.S. Central Command in Qatar, who says, ``Right now, we simply don't know'' if the bomb that hit the marketplace was American.
Later, in a repeat of the marketplace story, CNN's Wolf Blitzer alludes to how CNN edits coverage and chooses not to show some footage, when he introduces the photo of the girl in the hospital and says, ``These and bloodier images of injured civilians and damage were shown by news agencies here in the Middle East.''
Coverage on al-Jazeera of the attack includes longer clips from the same Iraqi minister's briefing, interviews with Baghdad residents, more footage of Baghdad streets, with a puddle of blood. It doesn't question the bomb's American origin, but it does show the U.S. military saying it needs to examine the incident.
``I'm not surprised that the coverage is different'' on al-Jazeera and Western networks, says Jihad Ballout, an al-Jazeera spokesman. He attributes the difference to his reporters' local sources as well as the demands of the networks' viewers. ``The Arab has been hungry for news for a long, long time. [In the past], everything has been edited, censored. Ever since al-Jazeera came to be, the audience has been demanding that everything is shown to them.''
In the U.S., CNN reaches 86 million homes; its international edition is seen in more than 160 million homes in more than 212 countries and territories, the company says. Al-Jazeera, available via satellite, says it reaches 35 million viewers in the Arab world, 300,000 viewers in the U.S., and four million in Europe, which doubled to eight million during the first week of the war.
Midnight EST Thursday / 8 a.m. in Baghdad CNN: A report from a road leading to Basra. Correspondent Christiane Amanpour explains that there is confusion in the city, as British forces try to distinguish troops from civilians, and that a humanitarian mission also is trying to deliver aid. ``The resistance is much stiffer than people had expected,'' Amanpour says, noting that the troops had experience with trying to win over civilian populations and that such difficult missions take time. The report shows an al-Jazeera clip of the explosions in the black sky. Later it shows shots of a crowd of Iraqis jostling one another as they clamor for handouts from an aid truck.
Al-Jazeera: A Basra report. Fireballs explode on the pitch-black horizon. Cut to a crowd of men rushing a scared-looking boy to the hospital where doctors lay him, one side covered with blood and an arm mangled, on the bed. Beside him, a veiled woman wails as doctors examine her bloody neck. Another bloody child is carried in. They are the ``the injured in Basra from British and American attacks,'' says the al-Jazeera anchor.
8:25 a.m. EST / 4:25 p.m. in Umm Qasr Al-Jazeera: Omar Khaki, the only al-Jazeera reporter embedded with U.S. troops reports that the arrival of humanitarian aid to the southern port city was delayed by the discovery of mines in the harbor. It is al-Jazeera's sole report from an embedded journalist in 24 hours. CNN shows dozens during the same period. Al-Jazeera says it wound up with only one embedded slot because Kuwait, which closed the network's bureau there several months ago to complain about its coverage, denied most of its reporters visas.
A poor videophone makes Khaki's face fuzzy. When the camera pans to what appear to be American soldiers in the background, it shows only a blur of colors.
At noon, al-Jazeera shows footage of a U.S. Apache helicopter, an unmanned spy plane and an army truck, ``which Iraqi forces shot down,'' it reports. The video shows a crowd of singing Iraqi men, waving machine guns and dancing on top of the helicopter hull. It repeats the video three times.
About 30 minutes later, CNN reports that ``several Arab-language networks are showing pictures of what they call a downed U.S. Apache helicopter.'' The network shows a brief excerpt of the al-Jazeera footage, showing the helicopter - but not the cheering crowd - and turns to retired Maj. Gen. Don Shepperd and retired Maj. Gen. David Grange, standing at the map table in its Atlanta studio. The generals dismiss the video outright, saying ``it could have been shot down months ago'' and that helicopters have been shot down in Iraq's no-fly zone. The Pentagon hasn't confirmed that the Apache was downed that day.
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