I hereby, before I rumble on about Al Jazeera and its coverage of Bahrain's "revolution", I would like to state that it will be a criticism of a news channel that I love and respect. And so, any attempt by anyone to criticize a loved party, usually, goes too much emotional, and too personal. Though, I will try to be objective as much as I can.
I bet that any follower of Al Jazeera will agree that the channel dealt with the uprising in Bahrain differently from the way it dealt with Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, or even Yemen. And true, some were satisfied with it and some were not, but yet, it was different. Some will argue that it is fair, considering that Bahrain isn't as significant as the rest. It is too tiny to be noticed, and it is populated only by half a million or so, yet, sometimes, it was the first headline of many other international news-channels. BBC, BBC Arabic, Al Hurra, even CNN, except Al Jazeera, (excluding the night that "Peninsula Shield" forces entered the tiny island). But I won't argue too much about that.
My argument is, that what was different in Al Jazeera's coverage of Bahrain and the rest, is that Al Jazeera was biased in all cases except for Bahrain. In Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Libya, and Syria, it sided itself, from the beginning, with the people against their tyrant. But in the case of Bahrain, it did not, it was impartial, neutral, and unbiased. In the other cases, the channel allocated, and is allocating still, significant resources, significant part of their rundowns and guest experts, at the service of the rebels. In Bahrain, it was a report, and sometimes just an LVO, a phone-conversation with a pro-government, or opposition figure, and then "We move now to events somewhere else in the Arab world" .. No expert to rumble for 30 minutes giving advices to the rebels about what to do and what not to do .. No hidden crew on the ground for thorough coverage. No, it was just a story, show the story of both sides, and move on. But as Jiddu Krishnamurti, the great Indian philosopher, said ... "being impartial between the suppressed and the suppressor, is taking the side of the latter". And surprisingly, Al Jazeera younger sister, Al Jazeera English, didn't follow the same editorial line. It did sided itself with the suppressed in Bahrain, from day one up to now. It did, and kept doing, criticizing the regime directly, Check it out, something that Al Jazeera Arabic, almost never did. Even though, and ironically, AJE did that under the title "Double standards" .. Ironic isn't it. Even if it is an article, still it is within the channel editorial line and policy, surf the website and see. And if we took under consideration that the same director is running both sister-channels, I would expect a unified editorial policy line. So, why it is not? I will assume that the reason is that each service have different audience, and the AJE cared to maintain the same sided-policy it did apply to all Arab "revolutions", the side of the rights of the people. it did that out of respect to their audience, and to maintain credibility. And I will advise Al Jazeera Arabic, as an admirer, to care the same, and to do not take their audience for granted. Because Arab viewers also have a radar for credibility.
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