Al Arabiya vs Al Jazeera

Today's New York Times Magazine covers the efforts by the new director of Al Arabiya TV in Saudi Arabia to reposition the station as a moderate alternative to Al Jazeera.

To Al-Rashed, the challenge he faces is much bigger than simply revamping a television channel. His goal is to foster a new kind of dialogue among Arabs, to carve out space for moderate and liberal ideas to enter the conversation, and in the process to do nothing less than save the Arab world from itself. ''People become radicals because extremism is celebrated on TV,'' he told me. ''If you broadcast an extremist message at a mosque, it reaches 50 people. But do you know how many people can be sold by a message on TV?''

...Al Arabiya employees in Iraq have been killed by insurgents. In late October, a suicide bomber detonated a car bomb outside the Al Arabiya compound...in Baghdad, killing five....A group called the Jihadist Martyrs Brigades took credit for the attack. In its dispatches, members had criticized Al Arabiya for giving the new Iraqi government overly favorable coverage. They called Al Arabiya a ''terrorist channel'' and suggested that its name, which means ''the Arab,'' should be changed to ''the Hebrew.''

Since Al Jazeera publicizes calls for the destruction of the Saud family it isn't too surprising that there is some interest in an alternative outlet, but a news and commentary source with a non-Al Jazeera viewpoint seems like a positive thing- even though the world might well be a better place when the Sauds are all living in Switzerland. In fact, when all the arab governments are living in Switzerland.

''If in Libya or Egypt I push someone to tell a story that will get him in conflict with the authorities,'' Khatib explained, ''I can't tell them, 'We need it.' Because it goes without saying that this subject is dangerous. This applies to most of the issues that matter -- all the things related to corruption and political conflicts.'' Al-Rashed told me that Al Arabiya can't report freely on the Saudi government because it is Saudi-owned, and the channel is unable to cover Algeria at all right now. Al Arabiya's correspondent has been prohibited from reporting for the last eight months by the government of Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the recently elected president: during the election, the reporter had predicted that Bouteflika's rival would win.

Click here: The New York Times > Magazine > The War Inside the Arab Newsroom