This is a pretty good article about Al-Jazeera from the Washington Post. I also think Phlosphr may be on to something… I hope to God he isn’t though.
The problem with Phlosphr’s latest theory is that Iraqis generally don’t have the ability to watch al-Jazeera.
Al Jazeera is a satellite news channel. Iraq bans the ownership of satellite dishes. Iraqi TV is the only game in town.
Al Jazeera is important, not because Iraq watches, but because most of the rest of the Arab world does. And they probably won’t be real pleased that Al J got the boot.
AZCowboy - You are right Iraqis are not allowed a satelite dish to watch Al-Jazeera. However, they are allowed radios and such. Also, in-country Iraqis probably do not have that much access to AJ but Iraqis in Syria, Iran, and other surrounding countries do, and they will, I am sure not be too happy.
I must say, Iraq was pretty Bold kicking Al-Jazeera out. This war may have just Jumped the Shark when it comes to the media battle.
Speaking as someone from a “rival” news organsation to Al J, we found this decision extremely odd. Not least because Jazeera has been instrumental in whipping up Arab sentiment pro Iraq and anti US.
That said, even if Jazeera has been booted out of Baghdad, its news coverage isn’t likely to change (they will still be able to get wires stuff and they are hardly likely to suddenly go pro Bush) and they’ll be straight back in with embedded journos etc once the troops arrive.
Conversely, if Saddam (or whoever’s in charge) is planning to use WMDs, he might want to have lots of media on hand to capture “glorious” footage of American troops dying from gas or germs or whatever. This is a propaganda war, after all.
Won’t this just make him look even worse? I mean hey, they were supposedly on HIS side, right?
I’m surprised by this as well. Why kick out reporters from a network that has been instrumental in gaining Arab sympathy for the Iraqi cause?
But the Iraqi propaganda strategy doesn’t make much sense to me anyway. Telling people the U.S. troops are still “100 miles away” is an obvious lie most of the population will soon discover, if they haven’t already. It would seem smarter to acknowledge the troop advances but make it sound as if this is all part of the plan, to draw them in and fight them in Baghdad.
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If you don’t mind me asking, which news organisation would that be?
Saddam may be a mass murdering shit head but he is not an idiot. Does anyone here actually think that he believed he’d win this war? I don’t. I think he’s got something up his sleeve. What it might be though I don’t know. Some good speculation on this though.
MBC2, our sister channel is Al Arabiya.