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Hidden World of Opposing JournalismI am often struck by how little of the Al-Jazeera-style news that is supposed to dominate the Arab world's understanding of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars reaches English speaking readers, myself included. Al-Jazeera has an English language site, but the articles it contains seem to come from or simply repeat English language journalism. Surely the English language content they provide does not reflect their Arabic content accurately. English language news sources frequently report that Al-Jazeera airs Al Qaida videos and that it incites anti-Americanism. But I and most other English language readers have no access to this journalism because of the language barrier. It is impossible for readers to judge for themselves the tenor of Al-Jazeera's Arabic language work or to sift through it for accurate factual information. It stands to reason that Arabic language journalists have access to information about the wars in the Middle East and much else that English language journalists do not as a result of cultural and linguistic barriers. Having access to translations of the Arabic language press into English would give English language readers a world of new information with which to analyze current events. ( categories: TranslationBlog )
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