Grow­ing anec­dotal evid­ence of AJE’s pop­ular­ity in Pakistan from The Nation. Worth read­ing in full:

Al Jaz­eera gain­ing view­er­ship
Faheem Raza

KARACHI — The Doha-based Al Jaz­eera TV is fast repla­cing the west­ern chan­nels such as the BBC and the CNN as a source of inform­a­tion and is in great demand in interior Sindh, Kara­chi and other cit­ies, The Nation sur­vey has revealed.

Accord­ing to TV cable oper­at­ors in Defence, Clifton, PECCHS, Tariq Road, Gulshan-e-Iqbal, North Nazi­mabad, Liquatabad and Gulistan-e-Johar, the Al Jaz­eera channel’s Eng­lish news ser­vice has releg­ated west­ern satel­lite news chan­nels to sec­ond­ary places.

One of the lead­ing TV cable oper­at­ors in a posh area said that a large num­ber of sub­scribers called them up, demand­ing that they show Al Jaz­eera trans­mis­sion when the chan­nel launched its Eng­lish news service.

Earlier, the Islamic Peace TV was the most sought after chan­nel among local res­id­ents, he added. He said that a major­ity of sub­scribers pre­ferred the CNN and the BBC for news cov­er­age but now these sub­scribers, par­tic­u­larly those in Defence and Clifton, were mov­ing to Al Jazeera.

Prof Dr Talat Waz­arat, the chair­per­son of the Depart­ment of Inter­na­tional Rela­tions, the Kara­chi Uni­ver­sity, said that a major reason of the sud­den increase in the viewer ship of Al Jaz­eera was the cred­ib­il­ity of news and sources. She observed that for­eign tele­vi­sion chan­nels often quoted news from Al Jaz­eera Arabic chan­nel which had enhance the cred­ib­il­ity of the Doha-based chan­nel. The Lon­don and Atlanta-based chan­nels were thor­oughly exposed for their biased report­ing of 9/11 and cov­er­age of recent events in Afgh­anistan, Iraq and Palestinian, she said. The recent Israel-Hezbollah war in Lebanon also high­lighted the biased world-view of the west­ern news sources. These news chan­nels imposed self-censorship and aired only one-sided inter­pret­a­tion of the events. She said that Al Jazeera’s pro­grammes were more bal­anced and inform­at­ive than those of the west­ern news channels.

Dr Aftab, a res­id­ent of the DHA, Phase V, said that he had been a viewer of the BBC for more than 20 years but now he had switched to Al Jaz­eera. “Its report­ing is bal­anced and no one can prove that they are fol­low­ing spe­cific agen­das like most of the for­eign news chan­nels,” he said.

Erum Batool, another res­id­ent of the DHA, said that “it was the need of the hour that an Eng­lish news chan­nel rep­res­ent­ing the point of view of Muslims filled the exist­ing vacuum”. She said that the chan­nel “countered the anti-Islam pro­pa­ganda of the west­ern gov­ern­ments espe­cially the neo-conservative US admin­is­tra­tion dur­ing recent con­flicts in Afgh­anistan and Iraq”. She said that the recent con­flict in Lebanon also exposed the for­eign news chan­nels even though they were gen­er­ally con­sidered inde­pend­ent and object­ive. She said that Riz Khan’s pro­gramme and the Inside Story aired by a for­eign news chan­nel were authen­tic and objective.

Abid Kal­war, a net and TV cable dealer in Gulistan-e-Johar, one of the most densely pop­u­lated areas in the met­ro­polis, said that they had received thou­sands of requests to air Al Jaz­eera not only from con­ser­vat­ive Muslims but also from mod­er­ates. The chan­nel had attrac­ted enorm­ous view­er­ship with its launch, he added.

Mudassar Jalal, a res­id­ent of North Nazi­mabad who works for an NGO, said that Al Jaz­eera had brought a revolu­tion in journ­al­ism because of its object­ive cov­er­age of con­flicts and the debate as to who will be the next Demo­crat can­did­ate for 2008 US pres­id­en­tial elec­tion. He said that his mother, a retired teacher, and his fam­ily mem­bers pre­ferred watch­ing Al Jaz­eera to get latest updates on inter­na­tional and regional polit­ics. The chan­nel is also pop­u­lar among for­eign stu­dents who are study­ing at the Kara­chi Uni­ver­sity, the Sindh Uni­ver­sity and med­ical universities.

Tariq Ali, a res­id­ent of Boat Basin Clifton who works for the Sindh gov­ern­ment and is cur­rently pre­par­ing for the Cent­ral Super­ior Ser­vices exam­in­a­tions, said that he had quit watch­ing BBC after the launch of Al Jaz­eera Eng­lish TV Chan­nel. Sana, a stu­dent of the Kara­chi Uni­ver­sity, said that she watched Eng­lish news TV chan­nel reg­u­larly and now pre­ferred watch­ing Al Jaz­eera due to its object­ive report­ing of inter­na­tional and regional issues. Salma Jaf­frey, a stu­dent of the Mass Com­mu­nic­a­tion Depart­ment at a private uni­ver­sity, said that he always thought that Al Jaz­eera was a con­ser­vat­ive tele­vi­sion chan­nel but after watch­ing its pro­grammes her opin­ion had changed and she had found it to be object­ive and balanced.

Amaz­ing, con­sid­er­ing its pro­duced by exactly the same people who once brought them BBC, Sky News and CNN…