Columbia Journalism Review: Borderless Journalism in Gaza

Columbia Journalism Review, January 21, 2009 - Analysis: Unlike the US networks, which parroted Israel, and Al-Jazeera Arabic, which focused on carnage and rage, the BBC, Al-Jazeera English, and CNN International offered more nuanced and objective coverage of the war.

In television terms, Gaza has been déjà vu all over again. U.S. television has been dominated by talking heads parroting Israel’s talking points, the wide shots of bombs exploding and smoke pillars that have become the white noise of Middle East conflict, and the occasional glimpse of a body bag.

Here in the Arab world, it is all blood and outrage. Coverage has been dominated by gruesome scenes of dead and wounded civilians (many of them children), angry commentators, and demonstrations on the streets of many Arab capitals.

It is the same kind of distorted prism through which Americans and Arabs have been viewing events in this part of the world since 9/11.

Standing somewhere in the no man’s land between these starkly different visions are the three main English-language broadcasters seen in this region, the BBC, CNN International, and, most importantly, upstart Al Jazeera English (AJE).

Balance is the goal of any quality news organization. But in the U.S., the quest for balance in this complex and highly-charged conflict has sometimes seemed contrived.

Take ABC anchor Charles Gibson’s lead-in to a “children of war” piece on the January 8 World News Tonight: “Youngsters on both sides of the border are being killed, injured, and traumatized by the fighting in Gaza,” he reported. But is that strictly true? By the day the piece aired, according to UNICEF, 292 Palestinian children had been killed, with hundreds more wounded. The number has since grown. Of the three Israeli civilian deaths at that point, none were children. There is certainly no doubt that the last few weeks have been traumatic for Israeli children living in towns near the border, but in the shorthand of U.S. TV news, their suffering and that of Palestinian children in Gaza became indistinguishable.

In contrast, coverage generated by the major trans-border broadcasters has been far more nuanced and comprehensive. London-based Tim Whewell’s in-depth and carefully reported five-and-a-half minute piece, “The case for war crimes,” on the BBC’s Newsnight, is not something likely to have been aired on U.S. television, while Palestinian producers, such as the BBC’s Rushdie Abualouf, have supplied a steady stream of original footage and reporting from inside Gaza.

Like the BBC, the staff of CNN International is drawn from many countries. As a result, it has been producing coverage markedly different from that seen on its sister channel in the U.S. An American diplomat here in the Middle East told me that he and a colleague were working out in the embassy gym one day with the television on. The embassy gets a feed from Armed Forces Radio and Television, so diplomats have access to CNN’s domestic service. Out of curiosity, they started switching back and forth between CNN Domestic and CNN International. “We couldn’t believe it,” he recalled. The domestic CNN was dominated by commentary supporting Israeli actions, while the international feed was focused on the devastation on the ground.

But with its mix of Arab and Western correspondents, news executives from Canadian, British, and Arab networks, and access to the regional infrastructure and expertise of Al Jazeera Arabic, Al Jazeera English is a channel born to cover this conflict....