Al Jazeera America was doomed
In the land of Donald J. Trump, where more than 16 million Americans still believe that Elvis Presley is alive, the announcement on Wednesday that Qatar-funded Al Jazeera is shutting down its American television news network will have come as no surprise.
In fact, after 30 months on the air, most Americans had not heard of Al Jazeera America and only a tiny number had watched it. That’s not quite a recipe for success.
Sadly, the closure in April will mean more than 700 hard-working and dedicated journalists and support staff will lose their jobs. And, more ominously, it casts a dark shadow over the reputation of the Al Jazeera Media Network and its government patrons in the Gulf state of Qatar, now suffering financially from the dramatic drop in the price of oil.
Al Jazeera’s room to manoeuvre is shrinking. It gets most of its funding from the Qatari government, and Qatar gets most of its revenue from its oil and gas reserves. When Al Jazeera America launched in 2013, the price of oil was $100 (U.S.) a barrel. This week, it fell to $30 a barrel.
Yet, the price of oil aside, the eventual demise of Al Jazeera America was ever so predictable. In June 2013, a few months before it launched, I wrote in my column for the Star that this project “has the odour of potential disaster.” I take no pleasure in the fact that I was right.
My connection with Al Jazeera was that I was managing director of its English channel between 2008 and 2010. But instead of building on the international and award-winning reputation of its existing English channel, which is seen in Canada, Al Jazeera created a stand-alone “American” channel that ultimately cost the government of Qatar upward of $2 billion.
In doing so, Al Jazeera’s bosses made the ludicrous mistake of trying to convince Americans they were as American themselves as apple pie.
They downplayed Al Jazeera’s global perspective, which was often brilliant, balanced and hard-hitting, and instead pretended that it could outdo the American news industry in covering America.
In spite of many examples of strong journalism, it presented an impression to viewers that it was a “wannabe” American news channel that was distancing itself from the hard-hitting, often controversial values of Al Jazeera.
But being bland is not the Al Jazeera brand, and Al Jazeera America was doomed to failure. Its journalism was often very good, but as a case study of management conceit, incompetence and waste, this disaster is worthy of a Peabody Award, an Emmy and an Oscar combined.
The first sign of looming failure was its agreements with America’s cable companies. They turned out to be a deal with the devil. To get the limited access they were offered, Al Jazeera America was forced to become like the toothless, mediocre news channels it was competing against. However, the good news is that, as a response to the closing of its American channel, Al Jazeera promises a big digital push in the year ahead for Al Jazeera English and its website in the United States. I don’t know if there will be any money left in the till, but this is an excellent initiative, however long overdue.
Five years ago, when I was still with Al Jazeera, I led a working group in Washington that came up with a 20-page detailed proposal on how the Al Jazeera English channel could be strengthened to make a real breakthrough with Americans, including through its website and digital platforms. In this 21st century, this would be a way of connecting with Americans without relying solely on the stifling monopoly of America’s cable distributors.
Al Jazeera’s headquarters rejected that 2010 proposal. Instead, a year or so later, someone in Al Jazeera and the Qatari government — with delusions of grandeur — came up with the idea of this vanity project called Al Jazeera America.
Since 2013, it has cost upward of $2 billion and has done nothing except tarnish Al Jazeera’s reputation. Somewhat incredibly, as I think back, we estimated in our original proposal that the added costs would be about $10 million over two years.
With oil now at $30 a barrel, my suggestion for Al Jazeera’s “new” American strategy is that they go back into their files, start again and hope that Americans will give them another shot. Tony Burman, former head of CBC News and Al Jazeera English, teaches journalism at Ryerson University. Reach him @TonyBurman or at tony.burman@gmail.com.