%1

Alternative TV: The war throughArab eyes

If good reporting can be judged by the enemies it makes, then al-Jazeera must be doing something right. The Arabic-language TV channel provoked rebukes from the U.S. government and military officials in the early days of “The War on Iraq” (al-Jazeera’s phrase) when it rebroadcast Iraqi footage of dead and captive U.S. soldiers. Shortly afterwards the New York Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ expelled al-Jazeera reporters from their trading floors.

Keyword tags

Watching al-Jazeera: The war in real time

Viewers watching the fourth day of the war on al-Jazeera television would have seen these items:

• When coalition sources were announcing the surrender of Iraq’s 51st Division and its commander, General Khalid al-Hashimi, al-Jazeera’s Basra correspondent was interviewing al-Hashimi, who said his troops were in Basra, defending the city.

• A group of Iraqi fighters and citizens were shown in Mosul, and one of them said into the camera: “At the urging of Saddam, we will kill the Americans, and we will kill anybody who does not fight the Americans!”

Keyword tags