Al Arabiya (Arabic: العربية
al-ʿArabiyyah) is an Arabic-language television news channel. It was established on March 3, 2003.
The international news station is based in Dubai Media City, United Arab Emirates, and is partly owned by the Saudi-controlled broadcaster Middle East Broadcasting Center (MBC).
Al Arabiya broadcasts 24 hours a day with news updated at the top of the hour. The free-to-air channel carries news, current affairs, business and financial markets, sports, talk shows, and documentaries. It is consistently rated among the top pan-Arab stations by Middle East audiences. Al Arabiya says it tries to use neutral, non-supportive language when covering Islamic militant groups. On January 26, 2009 President of the United States Barack Obama gave his first formal interview as president to the television channel. The White House contacted Al Arabiya’s Washington Bureau chief, Hisham Melhem, directly just hours before the interview and asked him not to announce it until an official announcement was made by the administration.
Content and Al Jazeera rivalry
Al Arabiya was created to be a direct competitor of Qatar-based Al Jazeera. According to a 2008 New York Times profile of Al Arabiya director Abdul Rahman al-Rashed, the station was founded “to cure Arab television of its penchant for radical politics and violence,” with Al Jazeera as its main target. Mr. Rashed alleged that Arab television’s coverage of militant groups was overly friendly. “You have to remember, it was television that made bin Laden into a celebrity,” Rashed said. “That made Al Qaeda, and its recruiting, and this is how violence spread throughout the region.” Mr. Rashed said Al Arabiya works to describe incidents of Islamist violence with neutral, non-supportive language. He also said the station had pushed Al Jazeera to be more critical of the insurgency in Iraq. “Now Al Jazeera is a very soft, reasonable station when it comes to the Iraqis,” he said. Al Arabiya has, in turn, drawn accusations of pro-American or pro-Saudi bias, in part due to MBC’s Saudi ownership.
Track record and controversy
Al Arabiya had been banned from reporting from Iraq by the country’s interim government in November 2003 after it broadcast an audio tape on November 16 purportedly made by the deposed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. The Iraqi government had also banned the channel on September 7, 2006 for one month for what it called “imprecise coverage”.
On February 14, 2005, Al Arabiya was the first news satellite channel to air news of the assassination of Rafik Hariri, who was one of its early investors.
On September 2, 2008, Iran expelled Al Arabiya’s Tehran bureau chief Hassan Fahs. He was the third Al Arabiya correspondent expelled from Iran since the network opened an office there.
On October 9, 2008, the Al Arabiya website (www.alarabiya.net) was hacked.
Slain reporters
In February 2006, three Al Arabiya reporters were abducted and murdered while covering the aftermath of the bombing of a mosque in Sammara, Iraq. Among them was correspondent Atwar Bahjat, an Iraqi national whose calm, non-sectarian coverage of the war had made her a popular figure in the region.
In September 2004 Al Arabiya reporter Mazen al-Tumeizi was killed on camera in Iraq when a US helicopter fired on a crowd in Haifa Street, Baghdad.
Investment and ownership
The original investment in Al Arabiya was $300 million by MBC, Lebanon’s Hariri Group, and other investors from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the Arab states of the Persian Gulf.
Online
Al Arabiya’s internet site Alarabiya.net was launched as a news website in February 2004 initially in Arabic. The website launched an English-language service [1] in August 2007, and Persian and Urdu services in March 2008.
The channel also operates a business website that covers financial news and market data from the Middle East.
The Al Arabiya News Channel is available live online and free of charge on Livestation (excluding the US)[2].
Historic appearance
On January 26, 2009 President of the United States Barack Obama gave his first formal interview as president to Al Arabiya, delivering the message to the Muslim world that “Americans are not your enemy”, while also reiterating that “Israel is a strong ally of the United States” and that they “will not stop being a strong ally of the United States”.
Competitors
- Al Jazeera
- BBC Arabic Television
- Alhurra
- Rusiya Al-Yaum
- Al-Alam News Network