Al-Jazeera English TV network hopes to connect Canada with the world

During the Bush administration’s “war on terror”, the al-Jazeera news network was made a public enemy.

High-level officials such as former secretary of defence Donald Rumsfeld publicly vilified the Qatar-based channel. And during the U.S. invasions of both Afghanistan and Iraq, al-Jazeera offices in Kabul and Baghdad were destroyed by American bombs (though the U.S. government denied the attacks were intentional).

But there was once a time when al-Jazeera was the darling of the Bush administration. Before the network dared to show images of bloodied Afghan civilians in 2002, the White House quietly applauded al-Jazeera for its role as a democratic force in a neighbourhood crowded with dictators.

This was all recounted by Nick Spicer, a foreign correspondent for al-Jazeera English based in Washington, D.C. He attributed North America’s reluctance to embrace AJE to the U.S. government’s hostility to AJE’s sister network, al-Jazeera Arabic.

Despite the initially cold reception, on November 26, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission approved the 24-hour news network for distribution on a digital basis.

“I’m really looking forward to it,” Spicer told the Straight. “I think we’ll be filling the hole that CBC used to fill with wide-ranging and hard-hitting international coverage.”

Spicer is part of what he described as the “Canadian mafia” at AJE. The network’s managing director, Tony Burman, is also Canadian, as is Avi Lewis, a host for AJE, and a number of reporters now spread out around the world.

Further strengthening AJE’s ties to Canada is a pledge from Burman to establish a AJE bureau in the country, which Spicer described as a great opportunity for Ottawa to speak to the world.

He explained that while the White House and especially U.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton have embraced AJE and speak to the network on a regular basis, the Conservative government in Canada has failed to grasp the advantages of going on record with AJE.

“We carry a message to about 180-190 million people around the world,” Spicer said, “including areas around Afghanistan and to people who might have an influence on the destiny of Canadian troops and aid workers.”

He noted that the information vacuum is currently being filled by the words of U.S. officials, which, in the minds of AJE’s international audiences, inevitably lumps Canadian actions in with those of NATO and the U.S.

Mary Agnes Welch, president of the Canadian Association of Journalists, also emphasized the benefits of raising Canada’s international profile through AJE. Furthermore, she said, Canadians will benefit from the local availability of AJE because of the exposure the network will bring to perspectives from around the world.

Even prominent Canadian Jewish groups are on board (notable because of al-Jazeera Arabic’s allegedly-biased coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict).

Frank Dimant, CEO for B’nai Brith Canada, a Jewish advocacy group, told the Straight that his organization initially held “tremendous concern” about AJE’s broadcast in Canada. But the network convinced B’nai Brith that it did not follow the “spirit and substance” of its sister network.

Dimant said that AJE pledged to work closely with B’nai Brith to ensure the network’s programming will not include content that could be interpreted as anti-Semitic or discriminatory toward Israel.

“We are satisfied, we are willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, and because there is the formal consultative process, we said we will not oppose the application,” Dimant said.

Despite all this and the fact that only an estimated 40 of 2,600 comments on AJE submitted to the CRTC were negative, Canadian cable networks don’t seem to be racing to include the channel in their cable packages.

While not discounting the channel’s future adoption, representatives for Bell TV, Telus TV, and Rogers Cable would only tell the Straight that AJE was under review. A spokesperson for Shaw Cablesystems refused to comment.

Just because the CRTC approved a channel for broadcast in Canada does not mean that the cable networks will pick it up and make it easily accessible for the public.

Consider the case of OUTtv, a national network that focuses on LGBT programming. Approved by the CRTC in 2000, OUTtv was still battling against what it argued was an “undue disadvantage” in 2008. The CRTC eventually ruled it agreed with OUTtv and ordered Shaw Cablesystems to take steps to ensure its marketing of the network did not place it at an unfair disadvantage. But before that, the network had to deal with incidents such as carriers grouping OUTtv with stations delivering strictly adult content.

Speaking from his office in Vancouver, Brad Danks, OUTtv’s chief operating officer, told the Straight that he believes intolerance was part of the reason some cable companies created problems for OUTtv.

That being said, Danks added, there are less-nefarious challenges AJE will have to overcome before it receives widespread availability in Canada.

There are only so many channels a carrier can provide, he explained, and so networks must be convinced there is sufficient market potential for a channel before they decide to bundle it in their cable packages.

Spicer maintained that AJE’s global reach makes it an invaluable network. While news agencies are shutting down bureaus around the world, he noted, AJE continues to expand.

An AJE information package states that the network now as 69 bureaus across the globe and emphasizes that the majority of those are located in the developing world. Furthermore, AJE employs more than 1,000 staff from over 50 nationalities.

“We are, I think, doing a better job of covering the world than the BBC,” Spicer said. He emphasized the benefits of AJE’s use of indigenous correspondents who know the ground they work in.

Another innovation AJE is proud of is its four broadcast centres, Spicer continued. “We just follow the sun.”

Spicer explained that while the BBC has London and CNN has Atlanta, AJE is run out of London, Doha, Kuala Lumpur, and Washington, D.C.

“What we’re doing is bringing about that reversal of information flow into practice in a non-ideological way,” he said. “To do that, you have to have people from the South speaking to the North.”

For example, Spicer continued, while a network like CNN might cover an American bombing in Afghanistan by highlighting the killing of an al-Qaeda target, AJE would look at how civilians were affected by the attack’s collateral damage.

“We’re not fundamentally anti-American, we’re not fundamentally pro-this or pro-that,” Spicer said. “We just try to be a really internationally-minded broadcaster.”

You can follow Travis Lupick on Twitter at twitter.com/tlupick.