I'm on a boondoggle right now and am getting USA Today in my hotel room. There is an excellent op-ed in it today about the wider availability of international news and how it would be a good thing if we were able to see the world from the point of view of others, including our supposed enemies.
The writer, Souheila Al-Jadda, is associate producer of a Peabody award-winning show, Mosaic: World News from the Middle East which is on Link TV.
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In Europe alone, several countries are launching Arabic-language satellite news broadcasts:
The British Broadcasting Corporation World Service is creating a $35 million, Arabic version of its channel. France is launching all-news Arabic programming next year. Deutsch Welle, a German public broadcast company, airs three hours of Arabic programming, which will expand to 24 hours next year. In turn, Al-Jazeera, the most influential Arab network, plans to launch an English-language channel later this year to give Western audiences the Arab point of view. Al-Jazeera is primarily funded by Qatar, a U.S. ally. Yet some U.S. officials accuse Al-Jazeera of inciting violence by airing videos from terrorists. Shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Al-Jazeera "has a pattern of putting out al-Qaeda propaganda." Al-Qaeda often first airs messages via Al-Jazeera.
Are U.S. networks that aired the same footage guilty of inciting violence, too? Whether the news comes from Al-Jazeera or Fox News, people should hear different sides of a story and engage in an honest discussion.
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Five years have passed since 9/11, and many Americans are still asking, "Why do they hate us?" But people in the Middle East don't hate us; in fact, most like our Western culture and its values. What they hate is our foreign policy.
