What happened to competition? First Comcast and NBC-Universal merged, and now the nationwide blackout of Al Jazeera English has come to light in the wake of historic protests in Egypt. Champions of the free market were noticeably silent about this outright denial of a popular news provider to operate in virtually all of the U.S.
Al Jazeera English is only available in a few parts of the country, including Ohio, Vermont and Washington, D.C., according to the Huffington Post. With the exception of these few pockets, most of the American public was forced to rely on American networks for television coverage of the protests.
Though this isn’t illegal, it is a form of cultural imperialism, and it continues the tradition of institutionally stifling competitors of color.
The Al Jazeera network has delivered far superior coverage of the news in the Middle East compared to international news agencies in the U.S. for a number of reasons, including proximity and the lack of ridiculous U.S. material support for terrorist laws.
For example, the network had reporters on the scene the day Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire and sparked protests in Tunisia, which would end up spreading around the Middle East. These reporters were able to capture the perspective of the Tunisian people and give voice to their aspirations as well as give the Tunisian government a fair chance to respond.
This type of coverage has continued in Cairo, where Al Jazeera reporters were some of the first to report on police detainment and violence against protestors — as well as the fact that the uprising was mostly youth-inspired and didn’t have any clear religious ties.
Most of the coverage during the week on such channels as CNN and MSNBC focused on how violent the protests were and how a change of regime would hurt U.S. interests. This created an embarrassing narrative that told people an increase in gas prices is more important than Egyptian living conditions.
During an interview with MSNBC’s Tamron Hall, an on-the-ground reporter had to constantly correct her as she attempted to manipulate the narrative. Every time she would say anti-government looters were “storming” buildings, he’d chime in by saying the people were actually let in the building and pro-government forces, often undercover, have been the source of crime and violence. Hall made no effort to take the plight of the Egyptian people into account, and MSNBC wasn’t held accountable because viewers didn’t have a source like Al Jazeera English to turn to and get the rest of the story.
Even when CNN’s Anderson Cooper finally made it on to the scene and delivered a special giving a positive light to the peaceful protests across the Middle East, accompanied with melancholy music and cliche slideshows of overturned cars and burning tires, it seemed well after the fact. Would U.S. viewers give the CNN-proclaimed “face of news” credit if they had been able to get all the same information, but more in-depth and in real time, weeks earlier on Al Jazeera English?
Many believe the choice for most cable and satellite providers to not run the network has to do with Bush era propaganda, labeling Al Jazeera the mouthpiece of Al Qaeda. During this time, the U.S. military murdered several Al Jazeera reporters and former President George W. Bush even wanted to bomb their headquarters, according to a report in The Nation.
The notion of the network being a mouthpiece for Al Qaeda is ridiculous because foreign news organizations are not subject to U.S. material support for terrorists laws, which allow the government to prosecute citizens for any contact with people on terrorist lists, even if it is to suggest peaceful resolutions to conflict.
These laws are an affront to journalism, because as journalists, we are taught to be fair by giving a chance to both sides of the argument. Thus, when networks only serve as a mouthpiece for the American government, it hinders the chances of a peaceful resolution by denying dialogue.
Al Jazeera English regularly has American government officials on its programming, as well as interviews conducted with a wide variety of people who oppose the U.S. This ability to give a voice to people you don’t hear from on American programming gives the network a distinct advantage in that it can offer opportunities for constructive dialogue, rather than communicating through violence.
It can also bring to light embarrassing revelations about the conduct of the American government. For example, during the protests in Egypt, people began noticing the weapons they were attacked with were made by the U.S. In case you were wondering, our government says it’s against the law for other governments to use our weapons to suppress peaceful protesters.
Major U.S. networks have had little, if any, coverage of this revelation, while Al Jazeera English has had it as a headline on its website — which has soared in traffic since the beginning of the protests.
The saying goes, “Let the market decide,” and clearly the people want Al Jazeera English. It’s about time we brought back competition.
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