Al Jazeera and its "Framing War"

The article in Al Jazeera English website on 2nd February 2011 titled: “US Viewers Seek Al Jazeera Coverage” is a persuasion to the US audience that Al Jazeera is an alternative source of information covering news related to the Middle East region. It is not only promoting Al Jazeera’s advanced achievement of journalism, but also try to convince the western’s (especially the US) public and authority related to importance to give Al Jazeera access to reach its viewer enthusiasm.


It is obviously not easy to cover the objective facts in undemocratic region (refers to despotic and dictatorship regimes) with many conflicts because of oil and disputed land such as in the Middle East. There are appearing so many old fashion of censorship such as by cutting the access of information, closing news broadcaster office, confiscating the broadcasting equipment or journalist detention. Furthermore, the countries like Iraq, Bahrain, Algeria and Morocco prevent completely the access of Al Jazeera’s journalist into their territory.

Director General of Al Jazeera (Wadah Khanfar) tries to convey western audience about its editorial freedom like enjoyed by western journalist, something that very rarely exists in the Middle East. She/He also try to inform how difficult its journalist get the real picture, embedded in large population from South Sudan, Palestine, Tunisia to Egypt, using alternative media such as blogs, Facebook, Tweeter and Youtube to avoid censorship and detention.

By term of “journalism of depth”, Director General of Aljazeera also promoting Al Jazeera superiority as source of information, such as by digging and elaborating real stories among population in many countries, before its changes to become mass protest from “Jasmine Revolution” in Tunisia to “Green Revolution” in Egypt. In Tunisia, Al Jazeera cover the socio-economic condition and giving context and meaning of story before its changed to become people power to topple Ben Ali dictatorship. While in the recent case of Egypt, Al Jazeera is the early news agency that covers protest in front of Egyptian interior ministry as the symbol of torture and dictatorship.

Director General of Al Jazeera stated that its journalists successfully cover the root and spread up of the recent revolution in Arab world with its nuance and depth coverage that neglected by most western media that cover it as only the matter of oil and extremism. The “framing war”, however, happened between western media and Al Jazeera in covers the ongoing “people power” movement in Egypt because of different interests. Al Jazeera frames the fact as a democratic movement to topple dictatorship that hold its power more than 30 years, while western media tend to frames it as potential of anti-western movement to topple its close alliance, Hosni Mubarak.

On the other hand, Al Jazeera is also “surfing” on the ongoing changes in Arab world to convince the western audience about the valuable of its news that misunderstood in the past. The “advance” fashion of censorship such as prevent al Jazeera to access satellite and got access to TV cable in 50 states in the US happened because of misinformation of its news content related to “cover both sides principle” tightly hold by Al Jazeera journalist including by interviewing the “terrorist” sources.

Al Jazeera is smartly framing its “protest” toward the US double standard on its broadcasting policy into the issue of freedom of speech along with democracy movement in the Middle East region, the term that very well acknowledged in western politics. Al Jazeera also tries to take advantages from the change in the region to persuade the US to give chance its appearance to its air. Through the Huffington Post, director general of Al Jazeera tries to sound this protest; the tone of fretful.

The way director general of Al Jazeera try to convey is logic and based on data they have, such as the 2000 per cent increasing hit access to Al Jazeera English website which 60 per cent of it coming from the US. She/He is delivering message that Al Jazeera will try to get its own way to “broadcast” its news for its potential audience from “by flip cams” in Egypt to “by online platforms” in the US. In the end of argument, the director general try to persuade the US authority to give access Al Jazeera reach its audience as part of freedom of information.

Something that not released by director general of Al Jazeera is related to the US diplomatic cable leaked by wikileaks that stated Al Jazeera as part of Qatar regime to gain influence in the region through the news agency (wikileaks.org). The cable was also stated that Al Jazeera not criticize toward Qatari government in many cases because of share ownership by the Qatar regime, the issue that Al Jazeera in many occasions tried to reject as a fact. However, in the recent development Al Jazeera forms Al Jazeera Transparency Unit that release “Palestine Paper” leaking more than 1600 sensitive document of secret negotiation between Palestine Authority and its Palestine occupier, Israel.

Finally, even though Al Jazeera is getting more attention in the last couple of months, it is still hard to reach the broader audience. The raising up of access through the internet and live streaming form as problem solving to the obstacle faced by Al Jazeera, used by the director general of Al Jazeera to persuade the US public to open their air to its appearance. On the different sentence, the US should give access to Al Jazeera to reach its audience enthusiasm in the American land. The real sentence that director general of Al Jazeera implicitly telling is “why the US is still conducting other form of censorship like occurred in many undemocratic countries”.