The Spectre of Al-Jazeera

Share this

Throughout the world, people are witnessing scenes of horror from Iraq on Al-Jazeera, the Arab cable news station. However, Al-Jazeera barely penetrates the United States. The network's newly-launched English-language web site remains down and may not be available for several weeks due to hacker attacks. According to Al-Jazeera correspondent Faisal Bodi, "few here doubt that the provenance of the attack is the Pentagon." Nevertheless, the station has become one of the most sought-after news resources in the world. "I do not mean to brag - people are turning to us simply because the western media coverage has been so poor," Bodi says. "Of all the major global networks, al-Jazeera has been alone in proceeding from the premise that this war should be viewed as an illegal enterprise. It has broadcast the horror of the bombing campaign, the blown-out brains, the blood-spattered pavements, the screaming infants and the corpses. Its team of on-the-ground, unembedded correspondents has provided a corrective to the official line that the campaign is, barring occasional resistance, going to plan."