Al Jazeera polishes its English for new spinoff

Tue May 2, 5:13 AM ET

LONDON (Hollywood Reporter) - Its glossy new London offices may not be fully completed, but anticipation is already building for the summer launch of an English-language version of Al Jazeera, the Arab broadcaster denounced by U.S. Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld as a "terror network,"

With broadcast centers in Qatar, Washington, London and Kuala Lumpur and distribution in almost 40 million homes, Al Jazeera International is planning to take on the likes of such international news heavyweights as CNN, BBC World and CNBC in the international news arena. (It has yet to sign a U.S distribution deal though.)

Far from aping the competition, Al Jazeera executives say they are setting out to be unashamedly different.

"We are launching at a time when the freedom of the broadcast media has never been under more pressure," says head of news Steve Clark, who spent 17 years at British commercial broadcaster ITV and two years at Middle Eastern broadcaster MBC before joining the Doha, Qatar based broadcaster.

"I look at the U.S. and get dismayed by the lack of critical analysis of the Bush administration. Our job is to report impartially and without any agenda."

Al Jazeera International will share resources and facilities with its Arabic sister channel and the two broadcasters will work together on relevant stories, says Clark.

The news channel, which is mostly targeting the 2 billion or so non-Arabic speaking Muslims around the world, will offer a different perspective, says managing director Nigel Parsons, a former director of Associated Press Television News.

"We'll report the same news, but we might report it differently," he says. "If we were reporting the war in Iraq we would call it an illegal invasion based on false information and without the sanction of the United Nations. During the war we would have called American soldiers invading forces and afterwards we would have called them occupying forces," he says.

Asked how a Palestinian suicide bombing in a crowded Israeli marketplace would be reported, Parsons remains adamant that different conventions would apply.

"We don't condone acts of terror, but we'd be very careful about labeling particular groups as terrorists. There are an awful lot of double standards and a lack of balance that is not coming from us."

Parsons' line on U.S media is similarly uncompromising.

"U.S. networks are mostly owned by big business interests and have come under tremendous pressure from this administration. They are akin to the Soviet media in the seventies."

Ever since Al Jazeera Arabic broadcast video tapes of Osama Bin Laden in the aftermath of 9/11, the network has been a target for political controversy. In addition to being criticized by Rumsfeld, it was also attacked by British Prime Minister Tony Blair for showing the bodies of British soldiers.

"Al Jazeera is one of the best-known news brands in the world," says Dr. Nasser Hadian, professor of political science at Tehran University. "It has spawned a lot of imitators, but it remains the most watched broadcaster in the region and outside."

The channel was originally born out of failed plans by the BBC in the late nineties to launch an Arabic-language news channel in the region. When the British public broadcaster backed out of the project, the politically progressive emir of the tiny Gulf state of Qatar stepped in to bankroll the operation instead.

Al Jazeera International has opted to broadcast its signal out of London and is governed by a broadcast license issued by British media regulator Ofcom, which has stringent guidelines on issues of impartiality, taste and decency.

Parsons and Clark have also hired a string of high-profile journalists to underpin its editorial credentials, including such luminaries as Sir David Frost, the BBC's Rageh Omaar, former CNN anchor Riz Khan, former CNBC Washington correspondent Rob Reynolds and Kimberly Halkett from Canada's Global National network.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter

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