18 Nov 2024 Why Al Jazeera’s news coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza has gained global credibility

Kiran Hassan

The Council of Europe defines the role of media in conflict situations and wars as critical to providing the public with accurate and timely information. It suggests that the supply of trustworthy news and images contributes to the protection of civilians and conflict prevention and is key in gaining the attention of the international community for violations of human rights and international humanitarian law (Council of Europe). By this definition, the Al Jazeera news network enacted the role of responsible media by covering Israel’s over-a year-long war on Gaza, which started after Hamas brutally killed 1,200 and kidnapped 197 Israelis on October 7, 2023.

As Israel’s war on Gaza unfolded, Al Jazeera’s 24-hour coverage provided details of the bloody conflict, which to date has killed over 42,000 Palestinians – mostly women and children – to Arab and international audiences. The Reuters Institute has hailed Al Jazeera for offering the Palestinian perspective, not just in terms of news reporting but also with regard to in-depth analysis (Reuters Institute).

Al Jazeera’s outreach and influence has noticeably increased as the news network’s reporting on Gaza has influenced global public opinion towards the Palestinian people and their struggle for an independent state since 1948. By offering the Palestinian side of the story, Al Jazeera has widened the credence and momentum of the demand for an independent Palestinian state like never before. It operates in contrast to most mainstream Western news networks who remain committed to highlighting Israel’s position, aligned with their respective governments.

This article argues that Al Jazeera has followed its motto of providing a “voice to the voiceless”, thereby standing apart from other news networks, appearing as a leader in editorial independence and in the condemnation of the killing of journalists and civilians. By offering authentic war coverage, Al Jazeera has substantially increased its international viewership and become known as a credible and watchdog news organization with global prominence.

Defending the messengers

Press freedom and human rights organizations hold the Israeli military to be particularly brutal towards journalists covering Gaza after 7 October 2023. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reports that 128 journalists and media workers have been killed in one year by the Israeli forces, of which 123 are Palestinian, two are Israeli and three Lebanese; 40 journalists have been reported injured, 2 journalists are missing and 69 journalists have been arrested. CPJ condemns the Israeli military forces for multiple assaults, cyber-attacks and killings of family members of journalists in Gaza. The organization claims that the killing and assault of Palestinian journalists in Gaza in a year outnumbers the killing of journalists in most conflicts and calls it the deadliest period for journalists since the organization started gathering data in 1992 (Committee to Protect Journalists).

CPJ’s outcry is backed by Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF), who consequentially filed four complaints at the International Criminal Court (ICC) for these shocking violations of press freedom, which, according to the Press Freedom organization, were carried out with impunity. Despite the reporting of war crimes against journalists in Gaza, the perpetrators have not been brought to justice and the crimes have continued. According to RSF, although the Israeli authorities claimed they did not target journalists, multiple testimonies, investigations, and even statements given by the Israeli army suggest otherwise (Reporters Sans Frontières).

Al Jazeera correspondents have been particular targets of the Israeli forces and the news network has faced more intimidation than any other news organization in Gaza and the West Bank. For example, Al Jazeera Correspondent Wael Al-Dahdouh lost most of his immediate family in an Israeli airstrike. Al-Dahdouh was then injured less than two months later by a drone strike in Khan Younis, which killed his colleague, cameraman Samer Abu Daqqa. Al-Dahdouh’s son Hamza was killed by an Israeli strike on 7 January 2024 (Carnegieendowment.org). Al Jazeera news correspondents were also targeted by Israeli forces before 7 October 2023. The killing of Al Jazeera’s journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who died on 11 May 2022 after being shot at the back of the head by Israeli forces while she was covering an Israeli military operation in the occupied West Bank, is another example (CNN, 12 May 2023).

The backlash by the Israeli government in response to the accusations by press freedom and human rights organizations of war crimes against journalists covering Gaza is widespread. Banning foreign media, allowing very limited international news crews to visit under strict conditions and asking the world to rely on government press statements and the words of officials does not provide sufficient information about the actual conduct of the war. With strict restrictions placed on the international media, journalists in Gaza have had to work as freelance reporters, providing graphic 24-hour video footage of the Israeli army attacking Palestinians to Al Jazeera and other news networks.

Al Jazeera became the main news platform to run the footage and stories coming from journalists in Gaza. The network also joined the international press freedom and human rights organizations in raising awareness around the highly alarming and dangerous conditions of journalists reporting from Gaza. Written columns and special television programmes like “The Listening Post” were available on the network’s website dedicated to highlighting this issue. Subsequently, Al Jazeera news was the only international news channel appearing to stand for freedom of speech and media rights in solidarity with their fellow journalists. Al Jazeera is also the main international news channel whose current staff members were targeted and killed by Israeli forces. Al Jazeera’s support for journalist safety was in contrast with most International mainstream Western news organizations, which chose to ignore the story – their bias against Gaza being called out by their own staff members.

Telling the human story

Media’s projections of the war and related content, videos and images help fashion the global discourse on the conflict. A transparent and unbiased understanding of the war is the most effective way of informing the audience (Pandey, 2022). Authentic war footage has historically shaped public opinion and impacted the outcome of several conflicts. War coverage of film and photos of real events play a part in how the conflict is perceived and recorded. For example, Nic Ut’s Pulitzer Prize-winning iconic photo “Napalm Girl” turned US public opinion against the government during the Vietnam war, George Bush’s call for allies to join in a global war against Afghanistan was strengthened after showing the footage of planes colliding with twin towers on 9/11. Graphic images and video footage deliver long lasting impressions in human memory, mobilizing human support and carving public opinion.

In the case of Israel’s war on Gaza, Al Jazeera appears to be the main news network which reported the ground story as it was and shared live video footage, video interviews, graphic images and Israeli and Palestinian social media trends as part of its news packages. The major Western news networks like CNN and the BBC have been criticized for providing biased coverage: the BBC has been accused of having a war narrative biased in favour of Israel. A protest email by some BBC staff members sent to the Director-General, Tim Davie, complained that the news network used words such as “massacre”, “slaughter” and “atrocities” when describing Hamas’s attack on Israel, while it refrained from describing Israel’s bombardment of Gaza in a similarly negative way. Layla Maghribi, the BBC’s North Africa correspondent resigned in protest saying she believed that the climate of intimidation against journalists and the failure of mainstream outlets to humanise Palestinians was causing the Arabic-speaking world and Arab diaspora in the West to lose even more faith in the credibility of Western media coverage. When resigning she said, “We’re not just witnessing a breakdown in humanity, we are witnessing a breakdown in the profession” (Al Jazeera, 29 Oct 2023).

During the previous major Gaza invasion in 2009, according to the Jerusalem Post, American viewership of Al-Jazeera English rose dramatically. As Al Jazeera English and Arabic channels were not shown on cable television in the United States, Al Jazeera’s live videos were made available on the internet which were then shared on social media platforms. Graphic pictures of dead and injured women and children which the US networks did not show captured the attention of Americans, generating enormous sympathy for the Palestinians and their cause (Jerusalem Post, 25 January 2009).

In the current conflict, Al Jazeera video footage of the war repeatedly went viral on social media platforms prompting an American youth movement supporting Palestinians which shook several American University campuses. Similar anti-war / pro peace protests in favour of Palestinians were observed amongst the global youth, especially in Western university campuses and capitals. Western media’s attempt to defend Israel’s justification of killings of children and civilians in Gaza when they were used as human shields by Hamas was widely denied as being a false narrative. As a result, trust and credibility which are essential in the reputational esteem of any news networks were seriously undermined.

Global youth overtly rejected and criticized the sanitized, biased government-led news stories, especially when they had access to live streaming of Israeli brutalities via social media. Moreover, to check misinformation and counter fake news on social media, many government officials and global capitals turned to Al Jazeera to verify news coming out of Gaza, as the only media outlet with journalists reporting on the ground.

Al Jazeera’s poignant footage of the devastating destruction of buildings in Gaza, punishment of kneeled and stripped medical staff, images and video footage of dead, injured and hungry children, killing of foreign aid workers, video footage of Israeli soldiers molesting Palestinian prisoners, killing and targeting of Palestinian journalists was shared in daily news packages in believable and trustworthy formats.

While traditional war coverage of newsrooms which mainly relied upon sanitized images and official narratives has collapsed, Al Jazeera’s global viewership and credibility have soared. Through its comprehensive and more authentic coverage of the Palestinians’ suffering, it has perhaps helped to create a global virtual community of anti-war sentiment and support, particularly among global youth – a form of “imagined community”, as described by Benedict Anderson.

Gaining international clout

When Al Jazeera launched its first TV broadcast as an Arabic-language satellite news channel in 1996 from Doha, Qatar, it provided live debate as the first independent news channel in the Arab world. Since then, it has grown into the Al Jazeera Media Network, with several outlets in multiple languages. The network now includes television channels, websites and other digital platforms and has led international coverage of some of the world’s most pivotal events including US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the war in Afghanistan and the Arab Springs in 2011. Amidst the Qatar and Saudi tensions in 2015, multiple countries blamed Al Jazeera for showing opposition voices in countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates (UAE) where such opinions were not included in local coverage (Al Jazeera, 26 October 2021).

Al Jazeera has enjoyed a significant rise in its popularity and increase in Western audience while covering these conflicts. In the past, it saw an addition of up to 4 million subscribers from Europe at the start of the Iraq war in 2003 (The Guardian, 25 March 2003). At present, because of covering Gaza, Al Jazeera English has seen a record high in its numbers amongst the English-speaking audience. According to Press Gazette, between June 2022 and October 2023, Al Jazeera English was the fourth biggest news publisher on YouTube: CNN had 15.7 million subscribers, ABC News 15.2 million, BBC news 15.1 million and Al Jazeera English had 11.7 million YouTube subscribers (Press Gazette, Oct 2023).

The news network has been repeatedly targeted for covering these conflicts. After 9/11, Al Jazeera was the only TV station with a permanent 24-hour satellite link to Kabul during the Afghan war, and its exclusive footage was used by many Western channels. It also became famous for broadcasting videotape messages from al-Qaida leaders. Al Jazeera’s bureau in Kabul was bombed by the US during the Afghan war, as was its bureau in Baghdad during the US-led invasion of Iraq. It was later reported that George Bush had wanted to bomb Al Jazeera’s headquarters in Qatar too but had been discouraged from doing so by the British prime minister, Tony Blair (The Guardian, 20 September 2011).

After 7 October 2023, the Americans displayed apprehension with regard to Al Jazeera’s presence and reporting on Gaza. During his visit to Doha on October 13 2023, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken reportedly asked Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani to “turn down the volume” of Al Jazeera’s Gaza coverage. While the Biden administration has not used military force against the channel, they have turned a blind eye to Israel’s killing of Al Jazeera journalists and their families (Carnegieendowment.org).

This time the attempt to muzzle Al Jazeera was done by the Israeli government. Prime Minister Netanyahu called it a “Terror Channel” and the Israeli Parliament passed a law for its closure in the region. With the support of Israel’s parliament, Al Jazeera’s office in Ramallah in the West Bank was raided by the Israeli military on 23 September 2024 enforcing closure for 45 days (PBS News). Meanwhile, the network’s cable outreach has expanded in other countries.

In the UK, Al Jazeera English and Al Jazeera Arabic HD channels are available on the Freeview platform (channels 251 and 252), on Sky channel 511, Virgin Media channel 622 and Freesat channel 203. Al Jazeera’s live stream is also available on YouTube and Al Jazeera.com (Al Jazeera, 19 August 2024). Al Jazeera Media Network (AJMN) and Globecast have also launched a comprehensive global distribution of the AJMN suit of channels on multiple delivery platforms and distribution services. This includes global satellite distribution on five continents, along with terrestrial distribution to affiliates and a back-up cloud OTT platform for its suite of channels including Al Jazeera English, Arabic and Documentary (SVG News Europe, 4 Oct 2024).

A report published by Brookings Institute in 2013 referred to Al Jazeera as the most-feared news network in the world. The report argued that, by having the backing of the Arab audience, Al Jazeera had the key to shaping Arab opinion much more than its competitors like Abu Dhabi TV, Al Arabiya, BBC Arabic, Iran’s Alalam, and French and Russian Arabic stations. The news network is most popular amongst Arabs because it has been for years a media mouthpiece for the Arab world especially in the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine (Brookings, 15 June 2013).

The rise of Al Jazeera has undoubtedly left an indelible mark on the region’s politics, heralded a new era in Middle East media, and introduced new dynamics in global media flows and international communication (Zayani, 2016). Where CNN, BBC, New York Times, France 24/7 and Australian news reporting has been in line with their governments’ positions on the war, audiences have turned to Al Jazeera, with second choices being Al Arabia (Saudi Arabia), TRT (Turkey), CGTN(China), First Post (India) for fact-based coverage on Gaza.

Conclusion

With war and conflict increasingly being live streamed and shared on social media platforms, the rules of war reporting for traditional media platforms have shifted. It is obvious that audiences will mostly believe what they see in terms of visual images. Al Jazeera’s strategy of providing news in response to the changing demand of global media consumers has transformed its status from a news network “for and by the Arabs” into a global news network attracting credibility and trust. In 2004, many predicted that the new Emir of Qatar had envisaged Al Jazeera news network as a tool for Qatar’s soft power. After two decades, this argument holds more promise than ever.

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Dr Kiran Hassan is an Associate Research Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London.