Published: Saturday, April 21, 2007
By Sam Hemingway
Free Press Staff Writer
The face of Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, flickers across the television screen as a reporter fills in viewers on the latest in the Attorney General Alberto Gonzales story.
Meanwhile, a news ticker streams headlines across the bottom of the screen: "U.S. says 24 Taliban killed in Afghan clash .... Nigeria election to go ahead .... U.N.: Sudan flying weapons into Darfur."
Squint your eyes, and you'd think you were watching CNN, or maybe BBC. Open them, and you'd see an Arabic-looking logo alongside the words "Al Jazeera" at the bottom of the screen. And it's all available to you in the comfort of your Burlington-area home.
Burlington, it turns out, is one of the very few places in the United States where the English language version of Al Jazeera, the Arab-backed television network criticized as pro-terrorist by the Bush administration, is available to local cable viewers.
Al Jazeera's Arab channel first came under worldwide scrutiny after it broadcast video statements from Osama Bin Laden in the aftermath of the 2001 terrorists attacks in the United States.
"We were certainly squeamish about it at first, given its reputation in the United States," said Tim Nulty, director of Burlington Telecom, the city-owned cable system, speaking of Al Jazeera. "But if you look at it, it looks like BBC. I think it's more mainstream and more objective than CNN."
Portions of Al Jazeera's English broadcast are occasionally featured on Channel 16, Comcast's education channel in the Chittenden County region, according to Scott Campitelli, Channel 16's executive director.
"It's got an Arab perspective, because it's from the Middle East," Campitelli said. "I don't see it as propaganda ... It's very credible journalism, very well done."
Even so, Burlington is one of the very few places in the country where Al Jazeera is available to cable subscribers. It also can be seen in Houston, Washington D.C. and parts of Ohio.
Worldwide, the English version of Al Jazeera network reaches 100 million households, about half the viewership of CNN. Despite its anti-Israeli reputation, Al Jazeera's English and Arabic channels are available to viewers in Israel.
"It's extraordinary that while the rest of the world is happy to watch us ... the U.S. stands in splendid isolation," Nigel Parsons, the Al Jazeera English network's managing director told The Associated Press recently.
Most of the network's programs are beamed by satellite from Al Jazeera's space-age looking studios in Doha, Qatar, a small, pro-American monarchy on the shores of the Persian Gulf.
The newscasts touch on American stories but have a heavier diet of news from Asia, Africa and even South America than American-based newscasts. Weather and sports reports are more worldly as well; a sports cast Thursday afternoon began with a report on a cricket tournament.
"The subject matter is stuff you can't get anywhere else," said Nulty, a globe-trotting economist before settling down in Burlington and taking the helm of Burlington Telecom.
Burlington Telecom began offering Al Jazeera in its cable packages to customers six months ago. The two-year-old cable system does not pay anything for Al Jazeera and has a contract to provide it until 2011.
Nulty said he has received little if any criticism about the decision to air Al Jazeera. Burlington Telecom has 1,200 customers in the city.
"One person called to complain vociferously," Nulty said. "Then we had two others call us who were obviously put up to it by the first guy. That's it."
Campitelli, at Channel 16, said he had received no complaints about Al Jazeera; Comcast reaches 34,000 households in Chittenden County.
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