Al Jazeera: How the Free Arab News Network Scooped the World and Changed the Middle East

by Mohammed el-Nawawy, Adel Iskandar, Adel Iskandar Farag

Al-Jazeera, the independent, all-Arab television news network based in Qatar, emerged as ambassador to the Arab world in the events following September 11, 2001. Arabic for “the peninsula,” Al-Jazeera has “scooped” the western media conglomerates many times. With its exclusive access to Osama Bin Laden and members of the Taliban, its reputation has been burnishing quickly through its exposure on CNN, even as it strives to maintain its independence as an international free press news network. Al-Jazeera sheds light on the background of the network: how it operates, the programs it broadcasts, its effects on Arab viewers, the reactions of the West and Arab states, the implications for the future of news broadcasting in the Middle East, and its struggle for a free press and public opinion in the Arab world.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Politics

240 pages, Hardcover

First published April 2, 2002

Reviews

[Val]

This book is overdue for another update. Any book about news and news broadcasting is bound to become out of date very quickly, but this is ten years old. I will wait for a newer, more relevant version.

[Yonatan]

I first heard about Al Jazeera during the Arab Springs of 2011, so it was incredibly humbling to read about Al Jazeera's origins in late 1990's and its claim to fame when it published the Bin Laden clips. I specifically enjoyed the fact this book was published in 2003, and untainted by "hindsight" of the Iraq war failures and emergence of ISIS etc..

The authors make a strong case for dialogue across the aisle, something AJ has honed for example, interviewing Israeli politicians and hosting controversial debates. The authors correctly predict how the gulf states (Saudi Arabia in particular) feel threatened by the "liberalization" of Qatari (of which AJ is dominent one) media.

[Frumenty]

A supportive but not uncritical assessment of Al-Jazeera. Published in 2003, this book’s big deficiency is that it is so dated. The Arab Spring was yet to happen, Osama bin Laden was still at large, and Yasser Arafat was still a player in Arab-Israeli politics. An updated edition would be very welcome.

[PDXReader]

I would have given this book three stars based on the fact that it's soooo repetitive. Although the book was short, I think the authors could have dropped another 100 pages if they'd eliminated all the duplication. My rating fell to two stars because the book is simply very dated, written after 9/11 but before the US attacked Iraq. So much has changed since its publication that one wonders how relevant most of its conclusions are, almost a decade later.

[David Sasaki]

Not a bad introduction to Al-Jazzera Arabic and its influence of Arabs around the world, but by now it's a bit dated. There is also quite a bit of repetition across chapters. I wrote more about Al-Jazeera on my blog.

[Andrei]

some history's details are useful, but it's too loyal to Al Jazeera on the whole

there are only compliments towards the TV network

[Andrea Schmidt]

A marvelous book that details the early history of Al Jazeera as well as the role it plays in bringing the Arab world together. An excellent read!

[Tomas Bella]

Important subject, terribly written. Waste of time, very repetitive.