AL-JAZEERA: How the Free Arab News Network Scooped the World and Changed the Middle East

Once an unknown news source to most Americans, Al-Jazeera swept into the nation's consciousness with its controversial broadcasts of Osama bin Laden's video addresses after the September 11 attacks. But as the authors show in this informative and sympathetic account, the Qatari-based network has been breaking new ground ever since it was established in 1996. Funded by the young, democratic-leaning leader of the oil kingdom of Qatar, the station has been challenging the status quo of quiescent, government-controlled media in the Arab world. The authors, professors of journalism and communications here in the United States, clearly show that it has accomplished this by reflecting the general outlook of its viewers and presenting Palestinian points of view in the Arab-Israeli conflict. To the station's credit, the authors note, Al-Jazeera also airs other opinions, as in an interview with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak in 2000. Virtually every Arab government, as well as the United States, has at times expressed displeasure with Al-Jazeera, but the station refuses to buckle. The authors back the station's goals but are not above criticizing it for presenting, like Western media, hard-line views of any stripe at the expense of more moderate ones. Regardless of whether Al-Jazeera's programming will open up the Arab political world, as the authors contend, this book is a great leap forward toward understanding the impact of a major opinion-maker on the world scene. 13 b&w photos. (May)

Forecast:This would have passed below the radar before Osama bin Laden chose Al-Jazeera to broadcast his videotapes. Even so, while Westview plans a 25,000 first printing, this won't appeal as broadly as other books relating to September 11 and its aftermath, except among Arab readers.