A very Arab view on very American politics

"The interest in the election in the US this year is light-years beyond where it was in 2000" when the network covered that presidential race, says chief correspondent Mohammed Alami, who like Mirazi is an American citizen. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have heightened interest in the presidential race. The network's 16 reporters and staff covering the convention here are more than its Arabic-language competitors Al Arabiya and the US-funded Al Hurra, combined.

Since January, Al Jazeera has been broadcasting a weekly one-hour program called "Race for the American Presidency." After initial skepticism within the channel that people would tune in, it has become a success, Mr. Alami says.

The channel is broadcasting 12 hours of the convention this week, not just for the 35 million viewers it claims to have in the Middle East, but also for hundreds of thousands of Arab speakers here in the US who get the channel through the Dish Network.

What does Al Jazeera's political coverage look like? Well, on Tuesday Alami was editing a piece on ... the media covering the convention. And the political stories on the channel's English-language website are relatively standard fare, other than an anti-President Bush slant - or at least a slant focused more on political conflict.

Everyone's favorite theme here, "the Democrats are united and upbeat," isn't the mainstay of Al Jazeera's coverage on the Web. It is, rather, a look at the attacks leveled at the president by the speakers here.

But in truth, Alami says, most Al Jazeera viewers don't believe there is much difference between Bush and John Kerry.

"The margin of allowed movement on the Middle East is so small," he says. "Kerry might not have gone into Iraq, but the US is there now, and that's unlikely to change whoever wins. On this issue I just don't think there is much Kerry can do."

And that means viewers are tuning in for a simple reason: In the last few years the US has become more than just a presence to the people of the Arab world; it's become a presence they want to understand.

"We're trying to explain the political system to our viewers," Mirazi says. "The US is so involved in the Middle East lately it feels like a neighboring country to many. American politics have become domestic politics to Iraqis."

Which brings us back to that Al Jazeera sign and the message sent by its removal. Despite Mirazi's live-and-let-live attitude, some at the station were less sanguine about the Democratic party's motives in removing a sign that some might consider an enemy flag. "It's just very typical," said one staffer. "It's always yes, yes, yes, it is fine and then at the last minute they say no. It's frustrating." It's also bad politics on a large stage.

This week Republican Chairman Ed Gillespie was asked whether his party would allow Al Jazeera to put up its sign at the GOP's New York convention. "I'd have to think about it," he said.

After thinking a while, he might want to say yes.

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