Abstract
Saba Bebawi sets out to evaluate whether Al Jazeera English covers important international events differently than two other global news agencies—CNN International and the BBC. Can it, in other words, be described as a legitimate alternative to these two Western news agencies? Although Bebawi does offer an answer, it is not enough to save this book from its shortcomings. Bebawi is Associate Professor of Communication at the University of Technology Sydney.
My first criticism: The chapters that make up the equivalent of a literature review contain studies that are several years old. Recognizing that this book was published in 2016, the plethora of publications from 8 or more years ago is surprising. At multiple points in my reading, I began to wonder if these studies were part of a previous work and simply added to this book. More current research, especially pertaining to international news and Al Jazeera, needed to be inserted into these chapters.
My second criticism: Not enough material is covered. One chapter, titled “Before the Arab Spring,” does not offer a rich analysis of this period. Instead, seemingly arbitrary events are selected in the effort to spotlight how the three news organizations did their jobs. As an example, the kidnapping of British journalist Alan Johnston, who was held captive from March through July of 2007, is not reviewed in total. Instead, the 100th and then the final day of his captivity are compared. What the reader does not get is a deeper sense of how Al Jazeera English made journalistic decisions in the years immediately preceding the Arab Spring.
The subsequent chapter, titled “After the Arab Spring,” examines an event from 2014 and then a separate one from 2012. If that order of presentation seems like a curious decision, so too did the choice to discuss these events in only a few pages. There is insufficient information and insufficient analysis in this insufficient chapter.
Bebawi soon concludes that Al Jazeera English’s coverage differed from CNN International and the BBC. Summarizing briefly, there were some differences, most notably in one case where an AJE journalist appeared to allow his bias to dictate his reporting; however, for the most part the three networks reported the events in similar ways.