Why Al Arabiya is so boring!

Whenever I watched the BBC Arabic, they would forever and anon turn to Dr. Edmund Ghareib when discussing political issues in the Middle East. Dr. Edmun Ghareib is an analyst based out of Washington DC, but he is originally Arab.

Yesterday, I was watching Al Arabiya, and who do they suddenly announce but Dr. Edmund Ghareib himself! They do the exact same thing as the BBC Arabic: he shows up via a live video connection, with the Washington Monument in the background over his shoulder.

Turns out he is a very busy man, because I was watching Al Arabiya with someone else, and she said that Dr. Edmund is forever showing up on Al Jazeera, too. So he is apparently not picky, he likes to be on all the news channels, and they all love him.

However, I think they do themselves a disservice. Whenever he comes on the air, I can't help but tune him out. I think he's kind of dull. Then again, I can never really catch what he's saying.

I learned some more things about Al Arabiya: during the coup in Egypt, they took the side of the Egyptian army. A lady who watched the coverage at the time told me that Al Arabiya actually didn't even present the side of the Muslim Brotherhood and Mursi.

Well, they are doing the same thing now with Iraq. Al Arabiya takes the side of the Sunnis in Iraq. All the time I've been watching Al Arabiya these days, I've never seen them interview anyone who represents the side of Al Maliki's Shia government.

For example, yesterday evening's program featured two guests: one was Dr. Edmund, an independent analyst, and the other was an Iranian guy, who lives in Britain and despite the fact that he is Iranian really doesn't like Al Maliki. They ought to have had a third guest, someone who took the opposite view of the Iranian. That is what the BBC Arabic always does: they have an independent person, and then they'll have two or even three other people who represent various opposing points of view. And honestly, that makes it more interesting, because everyone starts fighting! But at least they're just fighting with words.

Al Arabiya really should think about this, because their little conversation yesterday with Dr. Edmund and the Iranian guy was quite simply boring.

As for Al Jazeera, I've not been watching them; but I've just heard that although they sided with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and Mursi during the coup, they did at least present the side of the Egyptian army.

Al Arabiya reports on Iraq and Syria

I am not watching the BBC Arabic while in Jordan, but I am seeing a lot of Al Arabiya's special in-depth news channel called 'Al Hadeth'. That means, 'the events.'

I've never really watched Al Arabiya before. But someone told me that during the coup in Egypt last year, Al Arabiya took the side of the Egyptian army. On the other hand, Al Jazeera took the side of the deposed president Mursi.

Al Arabiya is owned by a rich Saudi guy - but not by the Saudi government. And it is headquartered out of Dubai.

These days, the only thing Al Arabiya's special 'Al Hadeth' channel ever talks about is what is happening in Iraq. Well, every once in a while they'll sneak in something about Syria, too.

Al Arabiya takes the side of the Sunni revolutionaries in Iraq, and is very clearly against the current Iraqi president, Al Maliki.

In fact, they don't really fully recognize his claim as head of state. Instead of talking about the 'Iraqi army', they'll just talk about 'Al Maliki's army'.

I don't think, however, that they are on the side of 'Daa-ish'/ISIS/ISIL, or whatever they are supposed to be called. But they probably put the blame for their appearance squarely on the head of Al Maliki.

Moving on from all the Al Maliki's, Al Jazeera's, and Al Arabiya's, I would like to tell you that Al Arabiya does also highlight the UN's role in what is happening.

For example, I think two days ago Syria's last stockpiles of chemical weapons were shipped out. So Al Hadeth did very long interview with Sigrid Kaag. I saw her last year on the BBC Arabic. She is the lady in charge of the UN mission to remove all of Syria's chemical weapons.

The Al Arabiya moderator asked something like: how does it feel to be leaving Syria while it is in such a shambles?

Sigrid Kaag: I came to do a job for the UN, and beyond that, I can't comment.

The Al Arabiya moderator: what do you make of reports that you are being considered as the successor to Lakhdar Brahimi as the special envoy trying to bring peace to Syria?

Sigrid Kaag: I don't know anything about that.

The Al Arabiya moderator: you don't know anything about it? I'm not asking you that, I'm asking how you feel about that.

Sigrid Kaag: I have nothing to say about that.

Yesterday, all the Syrian refugees in Lebanon and Jordan were back in the news, and Al Arabiya showed a clip of Valerie Amos speaking about the terrible situation. Valerie Amos is something like chief of humanitarian operations at the UN.

Then Al Arabiya showed a UN spokesperson, who said: we know that Lebanon and Jordan are overwhelmed, and we are doing everything we can to support them (or something like that.)


And then, Al Arabiya even showed a clip of the current president of the World Bank speaking about Syrian refugees. The current president of the World Bank is an American with roots I think in South Korea. Any case, he was talking about how the World Bank is doing everything it can to support Jordan and Lebanon.

This morning, Al Arabiya aired a commercial from Unicef, trying to get people to donate to the Syrian refugees. It was full of crying, miserable-looking kids. I'd heard before that Unicef does not show crying kids in its commercials, but maybe that is a policy just in place for western audiences.

Any case, at least Al Arabiya audiences don't have to suffer through that actress who does a Unicef commercial every Christmas in the US, with a really cheesy trembling voice. I guess Unicef must have monitored the results of that Christmas commercial and found it successful, because I see it year after year.

Central African Republic

(December 6, 2013)

There is fighting between Muslims and Christians in the Central African Republic right now. The UN voted on Thursday to send French troops, along with African troops, to act as peace-keepers.

This is a good chance to compare BBC Arabic and AlJazeera coverage. On Thursday, the BBC Arabic reported on the UN vote, plus showed footage from CAR: destroyed villages, ghost towns, and people whose parents had been killed and were now in hiding.

I was too tired on Thursday to check what AlJazeera had to say, so I did not check until Friday. I don't have access to AlJazeera television in Arabic, but I could go onto their website. They also had a story about the UN vote in the CAR, but it did not mention the killings and awful things happening. It just reminded the reader that France is a former colonial power and that it is very surprising and suspect that a former colonial power has, within the space of a year or so, sent its troops to two former possessions (CAR and Mali.)

I guess that is fair to point out, and on Friday, in between the Mandela coverage, they talked about that on the BBC Arabic, as well. But at least they pointed out both sides on the BBC Arabic. If there is ethnic cleansing happening, someone should stop it.

AlJazeera is a Caricature

(October 18, 2013)

The BBC Arabic was doing its weekly round-up of the top stories, one of which was some sort of fight between the Egyptian and Ghanaian soccer teams. I'm sure the Ghanaian side has no clue what is going on; the fight is probably just something made up in some Egyptians' heads.

According to the conversation with the news analysts at the table, she said that Al Jazeera was egging the fight on through its coverage. After discussing this for a while, one of the news analysts said "Al Jazeera has become a caricature" of the news. It does not really report the news, it is just trying to push its own agenda. Note: it was not a BBC Arabic employee that said this! Just one of the news analysts at the table. Here she is:

But you can also note that the BBC Arabic presenter moderating the discussion (in the red pants) did not question or dispute the point in the least!

And then, the same news analyst said: when it comes to Al Jazeera, the news on its Arabic versus English pages is completely different. The English page is somewhat objective, while the Arabic page is basically propaganda.

I've noticed this. Last year when the American ambassador was killed in Benghazi, there was a tribute of sorts posted to him on Al Jazeera's English page, talking about his accomplishments. The Arabic page said nothing about the ambassador specifically except that "President Obama condemns the death" and then, quotes from Obama praising his life. Now, for Arabs who read Al Jazeera, if the American president is giving you praise, that is probably a bad thing that leaves a black mark on your reputation.

Anniversary of UN Attack

(August 19, 2013)

This was the tenth anniversary of the attack on the UN in Baghdad. The BBC in English ran an introspective story about it the day before, but I did not see anything on the day of.

The Al Jazeera.net website ran nothing at all when I checked it the day of.

The BBC Arabic website had the story right underneath the banner headline, as you can see here:

An hour or so after it was posted, it became the second most-read story on the website:

Five hours later the story was no longer in the top five, and I think it had dropped to the fourth story under the banner headline.