Journalist's Journy with Al-Jazeera

The End of His RopeAn American journalist's journey with Al-Jazeera. Daniel StoneNewsweek Web ExclusiveUpdated: 8:51 AM ET Apr 8, 2008Broadcast journalist Dave Marash has been a stalwart of the American TV news scene for nearly 50 years, having worked at Fox, NBC, ESPN and, until 2006, as a correspondent for ABC's "Nightline" alongside Ted Koppel. But the veteran correspondent turned heads in early 2006 when he signed on to become anchorman at the Arabic TV network Al Jazeera's Al Jazeera English, which was opening its American headquarters in Washington. The network faced what one might charitably call a public relations challenge, being best known in the United States as the first place to broadcast the anti-American tirades of Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda cohorts. But Marash was hopeful that the U.S. operation would change that. During an appearance on Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report", part of a media blitz he did upon announcing his new gig, Marash said he expected Al Jazeera English to be "the highest-class English-language news channel in the world." Two years later Marash is leaving Al Jazeera, expressing disappointment that the global channel's American coverage was undervalued and that the concept that he originally bought into had changed into something he "could no longer stomach." A spokesperson for the network who saw things differently told NEWSWEEK that Marash is a talented journalist but that the opinions he expressed on his way out were "very much inconsistent with the sentiments of other employees of Al Jazeera—Arab, British and American." Marash spoke with NEWSWEEK's Daniel Stone about his tenure at the controversial network. NEWSWEEK: How did Al Jazeera sell you on the development of the English network in the U.S. with you as its face?
Dave Marash: They said it would be a very high-quality news channel, which it is, but that it would be distinguished from all other news channels by having four separate news centers: Doha [Qatar], London, Washington and Kuala Lumpur [Malaysia]. I was told that each of them would have a large degree of autonomy. It was known from the start that the largest share of the hours would go to Doha and the largest share of perspective would come from Doha. But the other three points of interest would be very well represented. The implication of your departure is that it didn't happen that way.
Over the course of two years, I found that more and more of the lineups and assignments were being devised mandated and ordered direct from Doha, and quite conspicuously Washington was the only one of the four news centers that never got a news hour. Was it just the geographic imbalance of on-air time that bothered you? What did you think about the content?
Well, every day I would see things that I would be very proud to associate myself with. The coverage of Latin America was really good. The coverage of the implosion in parts of Africa was absolutely great television. But it really hurt and embarrassed me that in the U.S. there was less concern given to that kind of excellent and authentic and knowledgeable coverage. Were there specific stories in which that was apparent?
Here's an example: there was a series on poverty in America, which ended up being nothing more than saying "Here are poor people in the richest country on earth, what a shame." And there's nothing wrong with that statement, literally. But it's a reporter's job to get a little bit deeper than that, to say "Why is it that these people or this part of town is poor? Why is it that being poor in this town is such an unrelieved misery when other places do a better job at mitigating?" But in any professional environment, isn't it common to have moments when you think things should be done differently?
Well, if I was just another employee, I might have felt differently. But I was sent out to represent a concept, and that concept had changed in ways I couldn't stomach. How did you confront Al Jazeera's reputation in America, as a network largely associated with Osama bin Laden and terrorism?
Well sure, for a while the channel was the chosen means of distribution of bin Laden's squalls. But it's the same reason why the Unibomber chose the New York Times to send his writings to. If you live in America, the Number One means of distributive power is the New York Times. In the Arab world, it's Al Jazeera. The real question is, after [bin Laden] submitted his videos and press releases, how was it handled? It was excerpted, never shown in its entirety and almost always surrounded by contextual analysis or adversarial comment. In other words, it was treated as what it was: news. So if bin Laden had mailed his latest tape to any news organization in America, do you think they would have distributed it the same way?
Without a doubt. Shame on them if they wouldn't. And the proof of that is that within 10 minutes of Al Jazeera airing something big, every news channel on earth is airing the same thing, courtesy of Al Jazeera. And they're airing for the same reason: it's news! It may be bad news but it's still news. What was it like calling the base of sources you had built at "Nightline" and telling them you worked for Al Jazeera?
Elected officials were shy of having public association or on-the-record attribution. But the "smartocracy"—staff, analysts, pundits, the think-tank people—got it right way. They realized that Al Jazeera English had the audience of a large part of the world that isn't in the orbit of networks like CNN and BBC. I never lacked really smart and interesting guests and never felt the lack of high public officials to be disabling because they're trained not to really do anything on the record anyway. Would you characterize any of the editorial policies at the network as anti-American?
To my great regret I let the term loose once and it is accurate in the sense that now that I'm gone there is not one American voice in an anchor role on Al Jazeera. While I worked there we were radically understaffed with correspondents for years. And the autonomy and independence that were promised are all no longer there. Were there any instances of raw anti-American editing or what you thought was unfair oversight of content?
Nobody ever touched any of my work, but other people may have had a different experience. What kinds of things did you hear about?
It's not something I really want to discuss, but I'll say that other people told me they received strong editorial guidance from Doha. Having now worked for both an American network and an Arab network, what's the difference in the coverage?
I think that anyone who watches some of the in-depth shows [on Al Jazeera] will ask themselves, "Why doesn't American news do stuff like this?" Because they slow down and take a real look at some serious, positive, negative and very characteristically American issues. Nowhere in American TV do you see those kinds of things being address very seriously. That's quite a commercial for the network.
Oh yes, I'll be a lifetime viewer. I think they're a terrific network. That seems hard to believe. You just quit, in what you're describing as a protest.
What made me nuts, and was unacceptable, was the standard of both the staffing and the authenticity of staff—meaning that we needed people who were either from the territory or at least had longtime familiarity and expertise with the territory. That standard was breached and condescended to uniquely when it came to North America, and specifically the United States. Do you think working for Al Jazeera has undermined your reputation in America?
I'm sure with some viewers it has. But I'm confident that anyone who saw my work on Al Jazeera saw it was thoroughly consistent with all of my other projects. I think in the long term the Al Jazeera brand name will be very respected. But there are probably millions of people in America who are very, very mildly annoyed at me. So what's next for you? Will you try to find another job in broadcast news?
I've been in broadcast news for 49 years, so there's a real imperative for me to find a gig in the business for one more year. I'm also ready to full-time advocate and teach the television news I believe in, rather than working for what I can accept. I'm also very interested in writing a book about this global competition of television news channels to define the world for audiences. With some of the dissent you have expressed, wouldn't you want to stay with Al Jazeera and provide balance to the types of editorial decisions you opposed?
I thought I could do it from the beginning, but I was wrong. I was encouraged to be their guy in America, but unfortunately for me, only in America are they not meeting an acceptable standard of television news reporting. More and more things began to appear on the air that started embarrassing me. So because I had put my face out there for them, I felt like I had to now take it back. URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/131025