Al Jazeera is a state-owned broadcaster based in Doha, Qatar, owned by the Al Jazeera Media Network. Initially launched as an Arabic news and current affairs satellite TV channel, Al Jazeera has since expanded into a network with several outlets. Critics have accused Al Jazeera of supporting the positions of the Qatari government, though Al Jazeera platforms and channels have published content that has been critical of Qatar.
About Al Jazeera in brief
Al Jazeera is a state-owned broadcaster based in Doha, Qatar, owned by the Al Jazeera Media Network. Initially launched as an Arabic news and current affairs satellite TV channel, Al Jazeera has since expanded into a network with several outlets, including the internet and specialty television channels in multiple languages. Critics have accused Al Jazeera of supporting the positions of the Qatari government, though Al Jazeera platforms and channels have published content that has been critical of Qatar or has run counter to Qatari laws and norms. The network is sometimes perceived to have mainly Islamist perspectives, promoting the Muslim Brotherhood, and having a pro-Sunni and an anti-Shia bias in its reporting of regional issues. Al Jazeera insists it covers all sides of a debate; for instance, the network says it presents Israel’s views and Iran’s views with equal objectivity. In June 2017, the Saudi, Emirati, Bahraini, and Egyptian governments demanded the closure of the news station as one of thirteen demands made to Qatar during the 2017 Qatar crisis. Other media networks have spoken out in support of the network. The channel has aired videos released by Osama bin Laden. It was the only channel to cover the War in Afghanistan live. It is also available through satellites, although Qatar, and many other Arab countries barred private individuals from having satellite dishes until 2001. It offered 6 hours of programming per day; this increased to 12 hours of Programming by the end of 1997. It has 80 bureaus around the world. It did not take long for Al Jazeera to shock local viewers by presenting Israelis by speaking Hebrew on Arab television for the first time.
The first popular talk shows were particularly confrontational and confrontational, particularly one called Lidid, which called one Direction, the other Direction. The station’s willingness to broadcast dissenting views, for example on call-in shows, created controversies in the Arab States of the Persian Gulf. At the time of Al Jazeera’s first day on the air was 1 November 1996, it was broadcast to the immediate neighborhood as a terrestrial signal, and on cable. The Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa, provided a loan of QAR 500 million to sustain Al Jazeera through its first five years, as Hugh Miles detailed in his book Al Jazeera: The Inside Story of the Arab News Channel That Is Challenging the West. The BBC channel had closed after a year and a half when the Saudi government attempted to suppress information, including a graphic report on executions and prominent dissident views. It had appeared since 1985, a Saudi-based venture of 21 Arab governments, took orbit in 1985, and underscored the unfolding power of Operation Desert Storm on CNN International in 1985. In the 1990s, a number of Arabs-at-the-East; a Saudi Arabia-based joint venture of CNN and Canal France International, accidentally put pornography into satellite orbit. In 2002, a more powerful Ku-band transponder became available as a peace-offering after its user, Canal France, accidentally beamed 30 minutes of ultraconservative Saudi Arabia into the Middle East.
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This page is based on the article Al Jazeera published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 30, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
