Hafez Al-Mirazi, Washington bureau chief for Al Jazeera Television, challenged American officials to better utilize the Arab news network in addressing the war on terrorism Wednesday night.
Al-Mirazi discussed Al Jazeera's role in covering the United States' response to the Sept. 11 attacks at the Sanford Institute of Public Policy, in the second speech on campus by an Al Jazeera official this month.
"There is a need for U.S. officials to be available to international media--not just Arab media but European and Asian media because your constituency now is the whole world," he said.
Al-Mirazi divided Al Jazeera's coverage of the war on terrorism into three phases--post-Sept. 11 response, military action in Afghanistan and post-Taliban rule.
Between Sept. 11 and Oct. 7, Al Jazeera carried every U.S. development, translated the events into Arabic for its audience and broadcast commentary from correspondents in Washington. Al-Mirazi emphasized that the opinion of the Arab world following the terrorist actions of Sept. 11 was one of sympathy.
"When Sept. 11 came, we found ourselves in the right place at the right time," he said. Because Al Jazeera had established an office in Kabul more than two years ago, the first 24-hour Arabic news network had greater access in covering the United States' military action in Afghanistan than other international media groups.
The network began to receive criticism from both the U.S. government and American news media after broadcasting tapes of Osama bin Laden discussing the Sept. 11 attacks. Al-Mirazi pointed out that American media soon followed suit and aired the bin Laden footage as well.
Al-Mirazi defended his station's decision to air not just one viewpoint, but to inform viewers of all sides. In response to criticism for its actions, Al Jazeera invited U.S. government officials to speak to the Arab community.
"If you think bin Laden is using us, please come and use us, exploit us," Al-Mirazi said.
Al-Mirazi said that as Arabs began to voice disapproval of U.S. action, the American media shielded the public from those voices and often refused to release the number of civilian causalities in Afghanistan. He added that when those statistics were provided, the media would simultaneously note Sept. 11's casualties.
He also said the Muslim world needed proof from the United States that its war was not an attack on its religion and pointed to Al Jazeera as a venue through which government officials could demonstrate that.
Al-Mirazi said most recently, President George W. Bush's State of the Union address and the reference to the "axis of evil" also raised concerns internationally and once again, U.S. officials failed to address those remarks on an international media stage.
The Al Jazeera network was founded in 1996 in Qatar, a small Middle Eastern nation. Al-Mirazi said the network was modeled after the British Broadcasting Corporation and unlike other Middle Eastern news services--which are government-censored--Al Jazeera attempts to present balanced coverage.
In addition to its Arab audience, the network has about 1 million viewers in Israel and 150,000 to 200,000 in North America. Al Jazeera's editor-in-chief, Ibrahim Helal, spoke at Duke Feb. 7.
Before joining the Al Jazeera network, Al-Mirazi served as a correspondent for the BBC World Service and also as a talk show host for the Arab News Network and Arab Network of America.
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