Picture Imperfect

The famous Bush doctrine ''if you''re not with us, you''re against us'' is alive and well in both the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq. Both have barred Arab television channel Al Jazeera from covering trading on their floors on the grounds that it does not engage in responsible reporting.
A critique all the more intriguing as it comes from organisations not known for the ability critically to evaluate journalistic standards.The bar comes despite the fact that Al Jazeera has millions of viewers who either trade on these exchanges or have interests in companies who do. A similar intolerance of Al Jazeera was displayed by the press and political establishment in Washington''s most uncritical ally, Britain. (“Indecent beyond boundaries and tasteless�) footage of dead British soldiers and British PoWs was decried, though it is another matter that American and British television channels are triumphantly broadcasting images of the ancient cities of Basra and Baghdad going up in flames, and of Iraqis being subjected to humiliating body searches by marines. One picture showing an Iraqi soldier being fed water at gun point was severely objected to by the Red Cross. Al Jazeera has hit back claiming it will reveal the truth howsoever uncomfortable it may be.
''Operation Iraqi Freedom'' was meant to be a visual delight featuring smart precision bombs, noble marines and wildly cheering Iraqis welcoming their ''liberators'' with open arms and flowers. Journalists were embedded in key military units from where they would report without ''jeopardising'' the operation. Faced with growing public dissent, the last thing the Americans and the British want is pictures of fallen coalition soldiers or dead and wounded Iraqi civilians. Al Jazeera may be in bad odour now, but interestingly, it was not so long ago that the channel''s footage of Osama bin Laden uttering his chilling threats was taken as gospel truth by the Bush administration and used as an excuse to go into Afghanistan. Later, Washington once again cited an Al Jazeera tape showing bin Laden criticising US plans to attack Iraq as proof of links between Al-Qaida and Iraq. Today, like it or not, Al Jazeera is the most popular channel in the Muslim world. It represents a different point of view from the western media. By shutting it out, the so-called dispensers of democracy cannot hope to understand the aspirations of the millions of people whom it hopes to engage with in the future.