Why Al Jazeera?

Screen shot of Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Al Jazeera English

Readers have probably noted a flurry of URLs directed toward Web pages for Al Jazeera English. This involves a somewhat elaborate story, which goes back to the fact that my first job after receiving my doctoral degree in 1971 was at the Technion, whose “subtitle” was “Israel Institute of Technology.” In other words, I completed my education at one “institute of technology” (in Massachusetts) and began my professional life at another!

I spent only two years at the Technion before returning to the United States for an Assistant Professorship at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. I was glad to be back in a setting that was willing to view both Israeli and Arab cultures on common ground. Indeed, I relished that common ground the following summer, when I planned a vacation that took me to both Cairo in Egypt and Amman in Jordan.

Nevertheless, news about the Middle East that accounted for both Israel and its Arab neighbors tended to be a “sometime thing” among most United States television channels. It was not until 2006 that Al Jazeera, based in Doha, Qatar, launched a 24-hour English-language news channel. Unfortunately, while I could usually count on good cable service wherever I happened to be living at the time, none of those services seemed willing to include Al Jazeera English as a channel.

As usual, the Internet came to my recuse. United States television networks may have tried to avoid Al Jazeera English, but YouTube had no problems with creating a Web page providing a live feed! Now I get my television service from xfinity, and guess what? The service includes more channels than I can ever hope to keep up with, but it also includes an “Apps” category. It did not take me long to discover that YouTube was included in that category, making it easier for me to watch YouTube content on a television (usually with my wife), rather than on a computer screen.

My guess is that I am far from the only one to get my news this way. Indeed, that aforementioned Web page claims that “more than 270 million households in over 140 countries across the globe" account for Al Jazeera English viewers. Now, if I feel I need perspective from a source outside the United States, I have an alternative to the BBC!