16 / 48
18
|
JANUARY08
|
THE CHANNEL
THE CHANNEL
|
INTERVIEW
NOTFOLLOWING,
MD
Nigel Parsons
led
Al Jazeera English
out of the starting blocks
for a spectacular first 12-month lap. Media response to the new
international news channel, he says, has been 'unremittingly positive'
major international channels and all the
majorArab channelswhich focused on
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict foundAJE
by far themost impartial
channel.Weare covering theMiddle East fromthe
inside out and it is very important that
people in other parts of theworld
understand the perspectives of regions
such as this. I think people in Europe far
more than elsewhere understand the
consequences of what's been committed
in places like Iraq in the name of
democracy.And if we are guilty of
showing the ugly side of war so be it.
That's our job.
Some of your fiercest critics
are peoplewho haven't
seen the channel - howdo
you correct that view?
The US is quite a difficult market
but there's been a sea change there.
The media articles that are written
about us are all favourable now
and they all say "We need to see
this channel, we need to
understand the world we are living
in". I think perceptions are
changing in our favour.
What's your key objective
when it comes to carriage?
We are in over 100m households
I
admire the
profession-
alism of
the
established
players and
would
never
under-
estimate
them. Our
job is to
catch them
up and
overtake
them
“
”
think if there was one new
international channel that
was desperately needed it
was this one. We are
headquartered in the
Middle East, the world's
news hot spot, and we have
the heritage of Al Jazeera Arabic
channel whose brand of fearless
journalism we want to build on.
We are headquartered in the
developing world and looking
at reporting from the political
south to the political north.
Previously news has always
gone in the other direction, and
so we felt a new perspective
was very much overdue.
How do you define your
success one year in?
Within weeks of our launch we
were already referred to as one of
the "Big Three" - we consider that a
phenomenal achievement to be put
on that pedestal with people who
have been in the business a long
time. I think we have been very
successful in sticking to our
mission statement, particularly in
terms of being the channel of
reference in the English language
when it comes to the Middle East,
and being the channel of the
developing world and giving, if
you like, a voice to the voiceless. In
places like Africa we are,
anecdotally, already the channel of
choice. I had a call the other night
from someone who had just been to
Afghanistan and he was astonished
to see that the only channel anyone
is watching there – from American
troops to UN people to people in
cafes – is Al Jazeera English.
Why haven't your
competitors tried to beat
you at your own game?
They have in a way but you are
what you are. If you are a zebra,
you are stuck with the stripes. If
you are coming out of a major
power it is very difficult not to
reflect some of the agenda of that
country. Ours is a bit woolly, we are
based in the Middle East so we do
reflect to the Middle East but we
are also a tiny state. Every story we
do is a foreign story.
Some people say that
coming from the Middle
East you might have a bias.
Not true. The latest survey byArab
MediaWatchwhich included all the
I
LEADING