Arbiter of news in a chaotic world

Salah Negm, director of news at Al Jazeera English, has a wealth of experience in pan-Arab news media. He has held senior positions in Al Jazeera Arabic, Al Arabiya, MBC News and has worked twice with BBC Arabic, the second of which involved him playing a key role in the BBC's second attempt at launching a 24-hour television news channel.

Weekend Review recently spoke to Negm about Middle East news media, its politics and the differences between Arabic news channels and the English-language international news channel he now works for.

 You worked with a number of pan-Arab channels before moving to Al Jazeera English. How does your experience with Arabic channels differ from the English Al Jazeera channel?

I have always been working in news. And news has universal values such as accuracy, balance, impartiality, speed and depth that don't differ from East to West. It varies from one channel to the other, depending on their resources.

If a news organisation has proper resources, you can obtain news very fast from different locations in the world. If you have good analysts, you can do more in-depth news than the competitor.

In its essence news is the same but the character and tone might differ. Because in some channels you might need to reach the audience in a challenging way. In other channels it might be more subtle.

 The BBC's Arabic news channel, which you were with when it was launched, has not made the impact that Al Jazeera Arabic, Al Arabiya and even the BBC's Arabic radio service have. Do you think the BBC's Arabic news channel has failed?

What is the measure of failure? Its orientation is a little bit different. There is an assumption of what the Arab audience wants, as with any other channel. I am working with Al Jazeera English and I have to think about all my viewers worldwide — what will attract them and what is relevant to them. You might get it right or wrong. I will leave it there.

 BBC's Arabic radio service remains very popular. What has the radio service done that the channel has not done?

The BBC has great editorial values. Speaking from the outside, I would say it needs marketing.

As a public service organisation it doesn't tend to spend a lot of money on marketing while commercial organisations do that because there is a return from advertising. So you might have a very good product [in BBC Arabic] but you don't have strong marketing.

 Would you agree that the Arabic news scene has become very polarised, with Al Jazeera Arabic on one pole and Al Arabiya on another?

I agree about polarising but I will not categorise Al Jazeera in that polarisation. I think a multiplicity of channels and opinions and orientations are good for the Arab audience. It is not a bad phenomenon. The Arab viewer is very aware of the differences between channels.

If you see viewership habits, people don't watch the news on one channel. They move between several channels and draw their own conclusions.

Al Jazeera will defend and be on the side of the oppressed anywhere, fighting injustice if it can prove it. This is the attitude of Al Jazeera. That is what makes people trust a news channel.

I would like to see more than two leading news channels in the Arab world expressing different points of view. Why not ten?

 Do you think Al Jazeera's lack of popularity with Arab states makes it more popular with the Arab street?

No, I don't think that is correct all the time. Because that implies that Arab states are not working for the people and that is not correct all the time. In many states Al Jazeera is as popular with politicians as the people.

 Is it a struggle for Al Jazeera English to not get entangled in the web of politics that news channels in the Arab world come with?

You have to deal with politics. News is politics, selecting the news is politics, so is phrasing the news and covering it.

There are some people who want that a news item does not to appear at all. There are other people who want to highlight a news item much more than it warrants to be highlighted, depending on their [vested] interests. As journalists our duty is to evaluate that and put news in the appropriate place and not suppress it if it is in the public interest.

From here comes the tension between a media organisation and a politician or a political party. It happens everywhere.

 Does your inability to get into the United States have to do with the fact that you are Al Jazeera?

I don't think so. … We can't get into the US for two reasons — for perception and commercial factors. The brand perception does not necessarily express what the brand is about. It is just a perception. Some people have a perception but have never watched the channels.

From our experience, negative brand experience changes when people watch the channel and stick to it.

The second challenge is distribution — to be on cable. And this is commercial. We are working on it and advancing in distribution all over the world.

 You have had more Arabic experience than English. Was there a drastic change?

The style guide for Al Jazeera is one. It is a network and we can't have two faces. It will make us lose credibility if we deal with two audiences in two messages contradicting each other. We don't do this. We realised that this is counter-productive.

The editorial values of Al Jazeera are universal. The way of treating [the news] is different, based on the characteristics of the channel, the audience and the type of journalists. For the Arabic audience, you have a product that is suitable for the audience — the news agenda, views and priorities should be relevant to the audience. You can't take that and put it in English because we are talking about a worldwide audience.

I have a viewership in the Americas, Asia, Africa and Australia and that is a totally different audience with different interests. The language is different [but] the terminology has to be same as much as the language permits because there are some words that don't have equivalents and there are some words that are used in the style that makes sense in one language but not the other.

 Why is it so important to go to the US? You seem to be struggling to get in.

The US is a very important market. It is the biggest English-speaking market. There might be more [English speakers] in China and India but we are already there. In Nigeria you have 160 million English [speakers]. Africa has a billion people, half of whom might be English speakers. But we are there.

In the US, you can't have free-to-air satellite channels that people can receive at home. Every home depends on a cable distributor and if you are not on cable, people will not watch you. We are very much viewed online in the US but we want to be watched by all the people there. It is a big market we have to link to.

I wouldn't call it a struggle. It is a work in progress. It is very important.

 Why is it so important for governments to start Arabic language stations?

I am astonished at the astonishment [at such moves]. International broadcasting has been around for about 70 years [but] its mediums are different. In olden days, countries would distribute leaflets and magazines [promoting] themselves. When video appeared [they moved to] broadcasting, so it is not a new phenomenon. You have Russian radio in 36 languages. Egypt has 45 languages broadcasting to Africa, Asia, Europe and North America. BBC had 40 or so languages. The US has Voice of America in 30 to 40 languages. International broadcasting is not a new phenomenon.

When satellite television started, it took some ground from international radio and now international radio is really declining in many markets. Organisations in international broadcasting are changing their platform but not their missions. And the missions range from propaganda to building bridges to publicising the country and this is a continuation of that.

 Nonetheless, many channels, such as Russia Today, France 24, and Euronews are choosing Arabic as the only foreign language to broadcast in. Why just Arabic?

If I think about setting up an international broadcaster, what will be the most successful market? You will have the English language [market] because you will have a block in the US that consists of 300 million people and you have an audience in Africa and Asia.

With English, you will have a potential audience of about 500 million people. Second would be Russian because of the former Soviet states. There might be 250 million people there. The third would be Arabic. This is the third linguistic group in a single market that you can reach by television or radio. Your [returns] are your audience.