Al-Jazeera : how the free Arab news network scooped the world and changed the Middle East /

This thorough study of Al-Jazeera, the Arabic-language satellite television network, is penetrating and lucid. Its candor more than offsets one or two lapses into cheerleading. El-Nawawy (Univ. of West Florida) and Iskandar (Univ. of Kentucky, Lexington) dedicate the book to the victims of the catastrophe that helped catapult Qatar-based Al-Jazeera to global prominence--the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US. The authors offer timely, in-depth attention to Al-Jazeera's development of news related to 9/11, including coverage of ensuing events in Afghanistan and interviews with Osama bin Laden. In his The Israeli-Egyptian Peace Process in the Reporting of Western Journalists (2002), El-Nawawy documented the culture of censorship typical of the Middle East. To traditional subverters of free speech, Al-Jazeera is a challenge, combining seriousness with a frisky enthusiasm and rebelliousness. Such qualities usually please its core Arab audience, often annoy the US and Israel, and frequently rankle Arab governments and ultra-conservative Muslims. Clearly, the authors admire Al-Jazeera, but they do not give it a free ride. They make clear that, for all its feistiness, the network has been subsidized mainly by loans guaranteed by the government of Qatar, and that Al-Jazeera's coverage of its host country has been timid and sparse. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals; general readers. A. R. Cannella Central Connecticut State University

Most Americans first heard of Qatar-based Al-Jazeera, the Arab satellite television news network, when they saw the October 2001 broadcast of the Osama bin Laden video. The Al-Jazeera bureau in Kabul gave the network exclusive footage on the war in Afghanistan, and with its access to Arab spokesmen and audiences it has emerged as a powerful player on the world stage. In an entertaining and accessible journalistic style, El-Nawawy, a former journalist in the Middle East and a journalism professor (Univ. of West Florida), and Iskandar, a communications professor (Univ. of Kentucky), examine the history of the network, its operation, and its effects on Arab viewers across the world. The authors also chronicle the negative reaction of Arab governments to some of the political coverage, such as Kuwaiti complaints that the network is too sympathetic to Iraq, and analyze several of the controversial talk shows, including The Other Direction, modeled on CNN's Crossfire, to highlight the radical nature of Al-Jazeera programming in Middle Eastern media history. Given ongoing world events, this timely book will be a welcome addition to academic and public libraries. Judy Solberg, George Washington Univ. Lib., Washington, DC (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Portrait of the Arab world's most widely broadcast TV news station, more visible to the West after September 11th. Committed to the principle of unbiased journalism, or "the opinion, and the other opinion," as their slogan has it, Al-Jazeera ("the island") has broadcast from the tiny kingdom of Qatar since its founding in 1996. El-Nawawy (Journalism/Univ. of West Florida) and Iskandar (Communications/Univ. of Kentucky) here outline its beginnings, programming, philosophy, and audience. In marked contrast to most Middle Eastern television, devoted primarily to entertainment and pro-government propaganda, Al-Jazeera, its staff culled mainly from the collapsed BBC Arabic TV network, is an equal-opportunity offender; the station has been asked to censor its coverage "by everyone from Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell." Though Al-Jazeera garnered pan-Arab attention with its in-depth coverage of the Palestinian intifada and its exclusive coverage of the first days of the war in Afghanistan, it covers major issues across the Middle East, many of them in highly confrontational talk shows. Algerian officials once cut all power to a number of cities in order to prevent citizens from seeing a program about the ongoing civil war. Supported by the Qatari emir, "a maverick by any definition," the station operates mostly with impunity. The authors, both of Egyptian descent, also cover the audience, which has myriad points of view but a generally shared belief in an international Zionist conspiracy. They document how people access the programming: those who can't afford a satellite dish watch at cafes or with friends, or buy a bootleg video. Indispensable for those who want to understand how news is made in the Middle East.