Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
08DOHA633
2008-09-04 10:22:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Doha
Cable title:  

AL JAZEERA TELLS GLASSMAN IT'S RESTRUCTURING TO

Tags:  PREL KPAO PGOV QA 
pdf how-to read a cable
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INFO RUEHEE/ARAB LEAGUE COLLECTIVE
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RHEHAAA/NSC WASHINGTON DC
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C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 DOHA 000633 

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/04/2018
TAGS: PREL KPAO PGOV QA
SUBJECT: AL JAZEERA TELLS GLASSMAN IT'S RESTRUCTURING TO
BOOST PROFESSIONALISM AND INDEPENDENCE

REF: DOHA 581

Classified By: AMBASSADOR JOSEPH E. LEBARON, FOR REASONS 1.4 (B) AND (D
).

---------------
(C) KEY POINTS
---------------

-- Al Jazeera has launched a 5-year restructuring plan to
become profitable, to include creating subsidiaries to
broadcast in additional languages, Director General Waddah
Khanfar told visiting U/S Glassman August 26.

-- Relations with the USG are "much better than before,"
Khanfar said; cable providers in the United States, however,
are still reluctant to carry Al Jazeera English, and for
reasons other than money.

-- Al Jazeera no longer airs extremist recordings unedited;
it attempts to check facts with the USG before airing
coverage of incidents involving the U.S. military, he said.


--------
COMMENTS
--------

-- Khanfar for some time has talked about Al Jazeera's
"five-year plan." Perhaps it is finally getting underway.

-- So far, Al Jazeera's efforts to restructure, to achieve
profitablity, to foster professionalism, and to air only
"newsworthy" segments of extremist tapes have produced only
incremental improvements to Al Jazeera's various broadcast
elements: for example, straight news, talk shows, breaking
news, and correspondents' reports.

-- Al Jazeera's desire to break into new markets through
subsidiaries in several languages may force Al Jazeera to
avoid its sometimes inflammatory reporting and commentary,
especially reporting by Al Jazeera's extensive network of
foreign correspondents, who operate out of more than 45
offices around the world.

------------------------
Restructuring Al Jazeera
------------------------

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 DOHA 000633

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/04/2018
TAGS: PREL KPAO PGOV QA
SUBJECT: AL JAZEERA TELLS GLASSMAN IT'S RESTRUCTURING TO
BOOST PROFESSIONALISM AND INDEPENDENCE

REF: DOHA 581

Classified By: AMBASSADOR JOSEPH E. LEBARON, FOR REASONS 1.4 (B) AND (D
).

--------------
(C) KEY POINTS
--------------

-- Al Jazeera has launched a 5-year restructuring plan to
become profitable, to include creating subsidiaries to
broadcast in additional languages, Director General Waddah
Khanfar told visiting U/S Glassman August 26.

-- Relations with the USG are "much better than before,"
Khanfar said; cable providers in the United States, however,
are still reluctant to carry Al Jazeera English, and for
reasons other than money.

-- Al Jazeera no longer airs extremist recordings unedited;
it attempts to check facts with the USG before airing
coverage of incidents involving the U.S. military, he said.


--------------
COMMENTS
--------------

-- Khanfar for some time has talked about Al Jazeera's
"five-year plan." Perhaps it is finally getting underway.

-- So far, Al Jazeera's efforts to restructure, to achieve
profitablity, to foster professionalism, and to air only
"newsworthy" segments of extremist tapes have produced only
incremental improvements to Al Jazeera's various broadcast
elements: for example, straight news, talk shows, breaking
news, and correspondents' reports.

-- Al Jazeera's desire to break into new markets through
subsidiaries in several languages may force Al Jazeera to
avoid its sometimes inflammatory reporting and commentary,
especially reporting by Al Jazeera's extensive network of
foreign correspondents, who operate out of more than 45
offices around the world.

--------------
Restructuring Al Jazeera
--------------


1. (C) James Glassman, Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy
and Public Affairs, began his August 26 meeting with Al
Jazeera (AJ) Director General Wadah Khanfar by asking if
Khanfar had a plan for AJ to become commercially independent
of the Qatari Government. Khanfar affirmed that it was "the
goal of any network" to have financial independence, but that
he was "happy with the Amir because he does not interfere" in
AJ's operations.


2. (C) Qatar "does not support Al Jazeera out of charity,"

he stated, and it "understands that Al Jazeera has given
Qatar great name recognition in the Arab world." AJ has
caused bilateral problems for Qatar, but "countries such as
Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt are beginning to understand that
they have to
separate the Qatar government from Al Jazeera in their
minds."


3. (C) With regard to profitability, Khanfar said he was
encouraged by an advertizing deal recently concluded with
Saudi business giant Abdul Lateef Jameel, noting that "Saudi
Arabia represents 65 percent of the regional advertising
market, and we need them to achieve profitability."


4. (C) Khanfar stated, however, that subsidiaries -- not
advertising -- would constitute the network's primary profit
center, and that AJ has launched a five-year restructuring
plan with this in mind.


5. (C) Khanfar emphasized that "our main brand is news and
we want to keep that separate so as not to compromise our
standards." But he added that much of the network's focus
would be on creating new subsidiaries, such as AJ channels in
Turkish and other languages, and on strengthening current
products, such as AJ's four sports channels and the
documentary service. Outsourcing of human resource

DOHA 00000633 002 OF 003


functions, finding alternate broadcasting arrangements to
bring down satellite fees, and integrating AJ Arabic and
English bureaus would constitute another major part of AJ's
restructuring.


6. (C) U/S Glassman asked if restructuring would bring with
it increased professionalism among AJ reporters. Khanfar
responded by saying, "As long as the region is in chaos, we
will have problems" such as the recent flap over former Samir
Quntar, the Lebanese prisoner recently released by Israel.
(NOTE: AJ's Beirut bureau chief threw a party for Quntar and
was reprimanded by the AJ editorial board.) This is why,
Khanfar said, AJ established a quality assurance department
to monitor broadcasts and report violations of the AJ code of
ethics, established in 2004, directly to him. The AJ
editorial board meets every month to review these reports and
issue statements on professional standards. "When a mistake
is made," said Khanfar, "we go on the air immediately to
correct it."

--------------
RELATIONS WITH USG BETTER
--------------


7. (C) Khanfar told U/S Glassman that AJ's relationship with
the USG was "much better than before," when senior officials
accused AJ of promoting violence. While he confessed to
"missing Donald Rumsfeld" for the ratings boost that he
provided, Khanfar said the USG's "attacks" created a negative
atmosphere for AJ in the United States, which has made it
difficult to gain access to cable providers. Khanfar shared
that AJ was willing to pay for access, but that all the major
providers had declined "for fear of being pursued legally by
groups that think we support terrorism."


8. (C) Arab governments had also taken advantage of the
USG's stance against AJ to crack down on the network in their
countries, Khanfar asserted, and are increasingly taking
action due to AJ's focus on human rights and democracy in the
Arab world. "We have never seen ourselves as part of a
reform movement," Khanfar said, adding, "we are just
journalists, but we believe strongly in protecting the
peoples' right to knowledge."

--------------
AJ ENGLISH: THE NEW FLAGSHIP
--------------


9. (C) Moving to the topic of AJ English, Khanfar said he
expected it to eventually overtake AJ Arabic as the network's
"global brand," emphasizing on two occasions that AJ English
is "not the voice of the Arabs," but that "since a lot of
news is generated from this region, we are more capable" than
other networks "of understanding it." AJ's overall strength,
he said, "comes from being based in the global south."

--------------
AQ TAPES NO LONGER AIRED UNEDITED
--------------


10. (C) Asked about AJ's policy with regard to tapes received
from extremist groups, Khanfar echoed comments made to a
recent staffdel (reftel),noting that a process was in place
within AJ to determine the proper use of any extremist tape
that is received.


11. (C) The tape is first reviewed by three senior editors,
who then identify any newsworthy items, he said. Any airing
of the extremist tape must be followed by a discussion with
an expert in order to "put it into perspective" for the
audience, and not allowed to stand alone. Unless there is
news in it, like the killing of a senior leader, Khanfar
said, the interest in a tape from Osama bin Laden or Ayman
Zawahiri is "no longer there." Khanfar claimed that CNN and
BBC followed the same standards with regard to extremists'
messages.

--------------
FACT CHECKING
--------------


12. (C) U/S Glassman told Khanfar that it was his policy to
encourage State Department officials to engage with AJ, and
that his military colleagues shared that view.
Unfortunately, however, AJ still airs a certain amount of

DOHA 00000633 003 OF 003


inaccurate information regarding incidents involving the
United States. Glassman strongly urged Khanfar to "call and
check the facts before going on air," to which Khanfar
replied by claiming that it is AJ policy to call military
spokesmen when AJ reports on an incident involving the
military, but "most of the time, we get no response, so after
15 to 60 minutes, we usually make a decision to go on the
air."


13. (U) U/S Glassman cleared this cable.
LeBaron